


Four Hundred Days

by quicksparrows



Series: Side by Side – Chrobin [25]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-09 13:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 108,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5541401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksparrows/pseuds/quicksparrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four hundred or so days after the sacrifice on Origin Peak that saw Grima vanquished for good, Exalt Chrom and his family and friends have done their best to pick up the pieces of a war-shattered world and carry on. For the most part, everyone has settled into their post-war lives, and all the future seems full of opportunity.</p><p>But on Morgan's birthday this year, strange things start happening. Some friends go missing far from home, a messenger bears a strange letter, and a beast is revived from slaughter. Something's changed in the world again, but what, exactly, remains to be seen.</p><p>One by one, they figure it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Strange Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, a new long work. This one will probably be my longest work on AO3, if it pans out; we'll see how it goes. 
> 
> There's a lot of things I want to play with here, sticking to some themes of the original game: parenthood, time "travel" as a literary device (rather than as a literal device), resurrection/rebirth, secret-keeping. Unlike the game, however, I'm going to rotate "protagonists" chapter to chapter, so most of the characters appearing will have a chapter or two of their own. 
> 
> This one is also set in the same sort of universe as my other fic(lets) featuring Ada, my MU; I might drop a few references here or there, but nothing substantial enough to warrant required reading. She's going to be largely off-screen anyway, given she's dead and all.
> 
> Additionally, a lot of my earliest rough copies of this fic were actually much shorter stories that were meant to play out in A Pyrrhic Victory, but I thought it would work better as a longer, more consistent work. As such, you can sort of imagine A Pyrrhic Victory as a collection of prequels to Four Hundred Days, but again, no required reading. I will probably continue to update A Pyrrhic Victory in the future, and a lot of the things that show up there will likely be reworked bits that didn't make it into Four Hundred Days. Or something.
> 
> Anyhow, thanks for reading and enjoy.
> 
> Content warning: there's a butchery scene in the first chapter, so if you are sensitive to slaughterhouse descriptions, please skip the marketplace scene.

.

 

 

                Chrom wakes up sometime in the small hours of the morning and finds an extra body in bed with him.

                To be fair, that isn’t entirely unusual. Over the course of the past four hundred or so days, all three of his children have made ample use of their mother’s empty side of the bed. Sometimes Chrom will fall asleep with his youngest in his arms, the toddler nestled against his chest and sleeping soundly even after he stirs. Other times, it’s his eldest daughter, slinking in like a shadow and crawling in, buried so deep in the covers that he doesn’t realize she’s there until he notices the long dark hair poking out from under the blankets.

                Tonight, however, it’s Morgan.

                Chrom cranes his neck to look at the boy crammed up against his back.

                “Are you awake?” he murmurs.

                “Yes,” Morgan says, quietly.

                “When did you crawl in?”

                “Not too long ago,” he says.

                “Bad dreams again?”

                Morgan gives a little noncommital hum and stays settled where he is, spine along his father’s but short enough that the back of his head is scarcely at Chrom’s neck. How he and Ada had such a little boy is beyond him –– Ada was hardly a diminuitive woman, and he’s plenty tall and broad-shouldered himself. Morgan is a skinny little cat, even when he isn’t swamped in his mother’s clothes. Chrom wonders sometimes if he’ll ever fill out, but fifteen is still young.

                “Dad?” Morgan whispers. There isn’t a trace of sleep on his voice.

                “Yeah?”

                “Do you ever dream about Mother?” Morgan asks.

                “Of course,” Chrom says. “All the time.”

                Morgan is quiet for a moment, and then he says: “I didn’t like this one much.”

                “You want to talk about it?” Chrom asks, because he always does. 

                “No,” Morgan says, just as Chrom predicts. “I just want to sleep.”

                Chrom reaches behind him to find Morgan’s arm, and he gives his son a brief reassuring squeeze. Morgan just draws the covers closer around him, and he lets out a sigh, long and tired. 

                “What a start to a birthday, huh?” Chrom murmurs.

                “Uh huh,” Morgan murmurs.

                Chrom stays awake until he’s sure Morgan’s drifted off to sleep, just in case. 

 

* * *

 

                Chrom is up early, as usual. Morgan sleeps late, and he doesn’t stir until Chrom has already bathed, dressed and begun catching up on some legal reading over a cup of tea. Even then, Chrom has gotten through another twenty pages of decrees and requests for pardon before Morgan even bothers lifting his head.

                “You’re going to sleep the day away at this rate,” Chrom chides him.

                Morgan just grumbles at him, and he pulls the blankets right up over his head. Chrom shrugs it off, pours himself another half-cup of tea, and stacks the pardon requests to the side. There’s still reports from various fronts to get to before he wants to go down and face council and figure out what, exactly, they’re going to do about the lingering problems that are Plegia and Valm. This is his morning routine, though the children rotate often.

                At nine sharp, Frederick appears at their doorway, as he usually does. He lets himself in wordlessly, greeting Chrom with a formal bow of his head and then the chipper “good morning” of an old friend.

                “Good morning,” Chrom replies, looking up from his papers. Frederick smiles, and Chrom feels tired. Yes, this is a new day.

                “Is Morgan in here again?” Frederick asks.

                Chrom just gestures to the bed, where a sizeable lump in the blankets indicate the presence of his teenage son. Frederick sighs, heavy and disappointed.

                “It’s his birthday! You’d think he’d want breakfast in bed or some such spoiling before a long hunting trip in the woods,” Frederick says.

                “Morgan would rather a big dinner and a good book, I think,” Chrom says.

                “I know,” Frederick says. “Perhaps for Lucina’s birthday, then!”

                “Lucina would like that,” Chrom replies, a bit of a laugh on his voice. “This one, though…”

                He looks up at the Morgan-shaped lump in the bed and shakes his head as he goes back to his papers once more. It amuses him, the thought of Morgan hunting –– he’d sooner read the deer and rabbits a book about the stars or teach them to play chess than raise a bow against them. The few times they’d taken him, he’d gone picking through the trees to find garter snakes and found a big bee’s nest to poke at. 

                Frederick is not content to watch the young prince sleep the day away, however, a hunt or not. He goes over to the bed to begin making it — something for the maids, Chrom always reminds him, but these little things make Frederick more bearable in peacetime. Chrom watches Frederick lean over the bed to inspect the boy, and then straighten up again.

                “You won’t fool me, child,” Frederick says. “You are hanging on every word we say!" 

                Morgan shifts slightly.

                "Up and at them, Morgan," Frederick says, and Morgan continues to feign sleep, but it's a hard sell to Frederick, who has never let a child of royalty linger in bed more than ten minutes past nine. "You are grinning, little prince. Up!"

                "Morgan," Chrom adds, sternly.

                "I'm _sleeping_ ," Morgan says.

                "Then I shall make the bed over you," Frederick says, and he begins doing exactly that. Morgan snickers as the sheets are pulled up entirely over his head and pulled straight and taut. “You won’t get your breakfast.”

                “I won’t miss breakfast!” Morgan says.

                “Even more pertinent that you get up, then,” Frederick says, “you’ll regret missing it when your belly is growling.”

                “I think the kitchens were making red berries and cream just for you this morning,” Chrom says. “At least, it looked like it when I walked past.”

                Morgan is up at that, casting aside Frederick’s nice sheets and hopping right to his feet. He raises his arms in the air in an exaggerated cheer, and he says: “I’m up! I’ll go get dressed and meet you downstairs!”

                And then he’s out the door, presumably racing down the hall to his own room.

                “That’s more like it,” Chrom says.

                Frederick sighs easily.

                “To think I ever I missed having children in the house,” he says, but it’s so fond that Chrom can only share an amused look with him.

 

* * *

 

                By time Chrom collects his youngest from the nursery and makes his way downstairs, Morgan is already in the dining hall, sitting at his place and in the process of filling his plate from the serving trays. His eyes are larger than his stomach, certainly ––his plate is piled crescent rolls with cheese and jam, little pastries stuffed with custard, flaky buttered biscuits with cinnamon and sugar. He’s fixed himself a large bowl of red berry pudding, too, made of currants and raspberries and cherries, and he’s pouring cream into the middle of it liberally.

                “Morgan,” Chrom laughs, setting Ryn in her chair. “Save some for the rest of us.”

                “Luci will gladly give me her portion, seeing as it’s my birthday,” Morgan says. 

                “Uh huh,” Chrom says. 

                “Do not tease her,” Frederick says, gently. “She has been rather tempestuous lately, and she likes red berries, too.”

                Morgan laughs, and he digs his spoon into his berry pudding with relish, the cream pooling in the well of his spoon. He leans far over his bowl to take the heaping spoonful without dribbling.

                “She’s only sour because Gerome’s gone,” Morgan says.

                Frederick looks mildly alarmed, but he focuses so intently on arranging a plate of choice pastries for Chrom that it is politer to ignore it than point it out. Chrom just chuckles.

                “When’s Gerome back, Frederick?” Chrom asks.

                “A few days from now, milord,” Frederick replies, smooth as ever. “Hopefully he’ll visit for longer than a few days this time.”

                Chrom hums his agreement, and he picks up a pastry with cheese and bites into it. Delicious. He watches Morgan devour his breakfast, amused by each overzealous reaction to each heaping spoonful, and then he sets on feeding his littlest one. She is fat-legged and clumsy, and she sits on a pillow on a smaller chair, squealing as she takes proffered mouthfuls of berries.

                “Where’s Lucina?” Chrom asks.

                “She wasn’t in bed when I checked on her this morning,” Frederick says. He glances at the large clock at the end of the dining room, the spun gold hands slowly ticking towards ten. “I’ll look for her after I’ve roused Lissa.”

                “Good luck with that,” Chrom says, and he turns his eyes back to Ryn, who reaches for the spoon to attempt to feed herself. Chrom lets her, with a prepared apology to her nurses –– she’ll surely be put back in their care with her white cotton dress marred with berries.  He holds the bowl steady for her while she clangs the spoon around.

                "Hey dad," Morgan asks, suddenly. "Can Noire live with us for a bit?"

                Chrom pauses, looking to his son only to immediately look back to Ryn digging the spoon in. He catches her tiny hand fast enough to stop her from flinging food.

                "Why?" he asks.

                "She says her parents are going on a trip and aren't bringing her," Morgan says, and he looks up from his plate to his father with hopefuly look. "So: can she stay with us?"

                "I think I'd rather discuss it with Libra and Tharja before making any decisions, bud," Chrom says.

                "Alright," Morgan says, but he sounds disappointed. _But it’s my birthday._ “It’s just boring in the castle. I’m always bored.” 

                The child who these days squirrels himself away with books for hours at a time: _bored_. Chrom remembers a time months ago where Morgan would go out riding with his friends, into the hills to explore crumbling old caves and down to the river to fish. Chrom remembers getting complaints from the maids about Morgan, Owain and Cynthia tracking in mud no less than three times a day, and having to tell them to quiet down when they’d get too rowdy in the halls. _This isn’t just our home,_ he’d had to remind the three, _it’s_ court _. It’s where the whole halidom works._

                “You’re the prince of Ylisse,” Chrom replies. “You have more luck and opportunity than any other boy on the continent. Maybe even the world! If you’re bored, you’re not taking advantage of that.”

                “When Lissa was your age, and in your shoes, she did nothing but look at clouds all day,” Frederick adds.

                “I wouldn’t be bored if I could join the infantry with Owain and Cynthia,” Morgan suggests. 

                “No,” Chrom replies, curtly. He doesn’t want to discuss it again, but he keeps his tone pointed but light.

                Morgan frowns.

                “You were allowed to lead the Shepherds when you were my age, so why can't I go along with the Cabal as _just_ a tactician?"

                "I was a few years older than that,” Chrom corrects him. “And you know that tacticians don’t just stand on the sidelines.”

                He has a brief mental image of Ada at his side, the long tails of her coat trailing on the wind, her cuirass gleaming in the dark and her swordarm raised, a Levin sword in hand. He thinks about how she’d looked ducking under his swing, moving in front of him to strike ahead of him, orange light reflected in her eyes when Falchion came too close. He thinks about how he’d pulled back to avoid striking her, and how she’d used that moment to…

                Chrom doesn’t like to think about that much. 

                “I’d stay back,” Morgan promises.

                Chrom shakes his head.

                "Lucina isn't allowed to travel, either, so it'd be unfair for me to let you."

                Morgan groans.

                “That’s not a good argument,” Morgan says. “That’s just changing the subject, and Lucina is bored here _too_.”

                Chrom tightens his jaw for an instant, but he doesn’t reply. He doesn’t want to argue. Morgan pushes himself to his feet when he realizes he isn’t going to get a response. Chrom knows that reaction pretty well. Morgan’s mother was the same way; Chrom could drive her insane just by _not_ engaging, and she _always_ wanted a reasonable, logical discussion. She generally got it, too, and it’d turn into a spat and then they’d laugh and make-up.

                Fortunately for him, Morgan doesn’t know his buttons like she did, so Chrom just sits quietly with his baby girl until Morgan slams his spoon down on the tabletop.

                “Morgan,” Chrom says, firmly.

                Too late. The birthday boy is already soured. He walks out, and Chrom just watches him go with a frown –– Morgan shoves his way by a messenger when he reaches the door. He looks to Frederick, who sighs too.

                “He’ll understand someday, sire,” Frederick says.

                Chrom shakes his head. He doesn’t want to say that Morgan’s right to want to stretch his legs, the same way that he did at that age –– as true as it is, he wants to keep his children close at hand. He had grown up with just two sisters and no other family to speak of, and every day he felt bitter that he’d had a hateful dead man for a father and a sad dead mother and big lonely castle to call his home.

                Now he’s here, with his daughters and son, and he doesn’t want to think about being left again, bitter and lonely. 

                The prospect kills him a little inside, no matter what he’s done over the past four hundred days to move on.

                Chrom barely acknowledges the messenger who pops in and delivers a letter to Frederick, who wipes his hands off on a towel before accepting it. With a quick bow, the messenger is gone again, and Chrom takes up the spoon from his daughter and tries another spoonful of berries, but Ryn just turns her head.

                “C’mon, kiddo,” Chrom says, being light and kind. “Eat! It’s good.”

                When Ryn won’t, Chrom just takes the mouthful himself and then loads up another to try again.

                Frederick makes a noise of disapproval, and Chrom looks up to see his expression has grown sour. That’s something he hasn’t seen in some time, and it prompts Chrom to sit up a bit straighter. 

                "What's wrong?" Chrom asks.

                “It was fitting to discuss Morgan’s desire to join his friends, as we have an update from the Cabal," Frederick says. And then, more darkly: “Lord Owain has left the regiment in his second's command and abandoned his post." 

                Chrom feels a sting of confusion.

                "That's... well, that's really unlike him," Chrom says. " _Why?_ "

                "We do not know, sire," Frederick says. He pauses to reread the letter, his frown deepening. "He slipped off without a word. Cynthia went with him.”

                "Really," Chrom says, and he pauses. Cynthia, he could have understood –– that girl could get lost on the way to the latrines, and has daydreamed herself off-course several times in the short time he’s known her. But he’s not quite sure what to make of his nephew, as Owain has never seemed the type to walk away from duty.

                Another explanation pops into mind, and Chrom finds himself looking up at Frederick with a suspicious smile.

                “Have they _eloped_ , maybe?" 

                “Perhaps their mothers would have some insight on that,” Frederick replies. He doesn’t seem even remotely entertained by the prospect. He pauses, heavily, and he taps the letter against the counter a few times as he thinks. “Surely he knows what an embarrassment that would be to you, given how recently you took up the mantle of Exalt.”

                “What do we do?” Chrom says, and suddenly he feels very aware of the fact that he _is_ now the Exalt, and he is spoon-feeding a fussy toddler while things are unraveling hundreds of miles away in a _very_ particular branch of his armies.

                “Wait for more information, I suppose,” Frederick says. “The Cabal is in no danger, and it is still in capable hands, but something like this should not be taken lightly. Perhaps he wasn’t ready for this responsibility.”

                Chrom nods.

                It was only three months ago that his nephew had been formally granted the privileges afforded to his station: _Lord_ Owain, with his own extensive fiefdom in the East of Ylisse, and command of his own regiment of the army. That branch had been swiftly dubbed “the Cabal” and dispatched to Plegia to maintain some sort of security over the crumbling nation. His nephew had been green around the ears, and perhaps should not have been given such a responsibility quite yet, even with adequate supervision under older, more experienced generals, but Chrom had allowed it. He had wanted Lucina at home and Owain had taken a great deal more interest, anyway.

                That he would go missing is worrisome, and perhaps a reflection of poor judgement.

                “And we’re sure they _left_?” Chrom asks. “There’s no chance they were taken for ransom?”

                “No, sire,” Frederick says. “It says quite clearly that they left of their own accord.”

                “Damn,” Chrom says, with a heavy sigh. “Well, I'll talk to Sumia and my sister.”

                Frederick nods. His eyes are still on the letter.

                “I’m glad I didn’t let Morgan go,” Chrom says. He feels an odd spark of levity when he looks at Frederick and jokes: “He’d probably tag along to officiate or something.”

                Frederick doesn’t laugh, but he looks up, then, the letter still held up, the top bobbing from the weight of the vermillion wax seal. 

                “Morgan writes to them, doesn’t he?” Frederick asks. “Perhaps we should speak with him, as well.”

                Chrom shakes his head.

                “Let’s leave that for tomorrow,” he says. “When it’s not his birthday.”

                He’s not looking forward to that conversation, anyway, because it’ll be one more argument in Morgan’s arsenal.

 

* * *

 

                In four hundred days, Chrom has done a lot for his grief, but he hasn’t done much for his old temper.

                Morgan isn’t in his room, or the library, or his mother’s personal library, and so Chrom heads back up to his own room in case the boy is sulking in there. Chrom is up two of the six flights of stairs that lead to his quarters when he realizes, with some frustration, that not only has his nephew made him look like an idiot, but he’s also now got to spend Morgan’s birthday thinking about the Cabal instead of just smoothing things over. Chrom suspects that conversation won’t go well, left for tomorrow or not. 

                The birthday is more or less already soured. All they need is a fire in the kitchens to ruin the cake and it’s all lost.

                Chrom takes the last few steps with his temper rising.

                On bad days, Chrom feels resentful of his middle child, largely because Morgan walks and talks and breathes his mother's love for knowledge and books and strategy. The boy has his mother’s wanderlust too –– hadn’t she always been wistful and full of sighs, sitting at the windows and staring out at the world as though she couldn’t wait to go out and find herself out there again? 

                Chrom feels terrible for it, too, frustrated with himself for fixating instead on moving on, but then again, those are also the days where he misses her most anyhow. (He just never wants Morgan to know that.) 

                He lets himself into his room and does not see Morgan. Just in case, he checks the dressing rooms and bathroom too, and the balcony. No Morgan.

                Chrom does, however catches the eye of the wedding portrait, which sits on a chair — its sat there since he decided to personally move it there, hauling eight square feet of canvas up and a heavy ornate frame up six flights of stairs, but not a single servant has found time to hang it properly in weeks. (Maybe they’re afraid to touch it, he thinks.) So there it sits, at a sort of funny angle, his wife looking at the artist with a frozen smile and the portrait version of himself looking at her.

                He looks at her in the eyes, and she doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe. He never expected to, but he likes to think she might. 

                "If you were in my shoes, and I was gone, what would you do? Let him run around the continent at fifteen?" Chrom asks the painting. 

                And then, when the silence is too much, he adds: "You probably wouldn't. But he wouldn't be upset with you, would he?"

                A surge of frustration hits him, and he gestures as if to kick something, but his room is spotlessly clean and there's nothing to kick unless he wants to break a toe on the furniture. He closes his eyes for a moment and mentally shakes himself.

                “I’m sorry,” he says, aloud. “I know it’s not your fault, or mine, but it’s really hard sometimes. All our kids are growing up and I don’t want you to miss all of it.”

                And then, when Ada’s eyes on him are too much, he turns away and heads for the door. It’s just a painting of her, but he feels bad walking away like that anyway, and he has to shove those feelings down. 

                He still has to talk to Sumia and Lissa.

 

* * *

 

                "Oh, poor Morgan," Sumia sighs. "Always the little ones left behind, huh?"

                Sumia has a hand clasped to her cheek and is hugging herself with her other arm, the classic pose of a concerned young lady. She’s sat across from Lissa, the table between them laden with cards and drinks. There’s a great big stack of mother-of-pearl gambling chips in the center, because Lissa always obliterates Sumia’s card hands and it stings less when real money isn’t on the table. Both women have their attentions on Chrom now, though, Sumia’s eyes round like tea saucers and Lissa with her arms folded on her heavily pregnant belly. Chrom feels somewhat disappointed to have interruped their giggling and playing around, but here he is.

                "He's fifteen, Sumia," Chrom says. This discussion is already off-track; he’d come to ask about _their_ children, not get advice on his, but it seems everyone in the castle already knows the birthday boy is upset. Chrom presses his point: "He should enjoy peacetime as a kid while he's still young."

                "I know, but that doesn't help watching your friends go off without you," Sumia says, patient as ever. "That was just how Ricken felt and he did fine."

                "Ricken ran off to _war_ ," Chrom says. 

                "There is no war right now,” Lissa interjects. “So what’s the big worry? Owain and Cynthia are fine.”

                "Captain, you have soldiers all across the land rebuilding," Sumia says, gentle but pointed. "What harm could it do, to have him with Owain and Cynthia? You should at least reconsider, especially on his birthday.”

                “I promise I will think about it, but I didn't come here to talk about Morgan," Chrom says, just as pointedly. "I came here to talk about Owain and Cynthia."

                Sumia's great owlish eyes grow surprised, and then delighted:

                "Did we get news from them, finally?" she asks. "I haven't gotten a letter in some time, so I was starting to worry."

                "Oh no," Lissa pipes up, suddenly. "Don't tell me.”

                Chrom looks at his sister with an odd sinking feeling. She looks up at him with a furrowed brow, and with the way her lower lip sticks out, she’s already setting herself up to be furious.

                "Don't tell you what?" Chrom says.

                "He kept writing to me about wanting to train a wyvern himself but I told him he'd get eaten. Did he _do_ it?" Lissa demands.

                "Uh, no," Chrom says. "Not that I know of."

                Lissa’s consternation vanishes.

                "Phew," Lissa says.

                "Okay, seriously now," Chrom says, with his own touch of frustration. If he’s distracted a third time, he’ll be cross. "We just got word from Owain's second in command that Owain and Cynthia have deserted the army."

                "What?!" Sumia gasps. And then, almost immediately: “Did they elope?”

                Sumia is dreamy-romantic, taken away by the idea of her daughter running off with wild abandon for love. Lissa isn't so serene: she stands up so abruptly she jostles the entire tea table. Sumia jumps in her seat.

                “What?! Where is he!” Lissa exclaims. “He has no business running off or eloping without telling me, I’ll drag him home by the ear if I have to!!”

                "Lissa," Chrom sighs. “Sit down before you get too worked up.”

                Lissa stays on her feet, hands on the table and her belly so distended that it nearly brushes the table’s edge without her even having to lean too far.

                “Why would my idiot son desert the Cabal?” Lissa demands.

                “We don’t _know_ ,” Chrom says, frustrated. “That’s why I came to ask, in case you had an idea.”

                Lissa is red in the face, and against her wild straw-blonde hair, she looks like her whole head might burst into flames. She folds her arms again and lifts her chin.

                “I don’t have a clue!” she says, and then she looks at Sumia. “Owain wouldn’t just elope! He knows I’d lose my head.”

                “You don’t think so?” Sumia asks. “He’s always telling stories like that, though, knights meeting princesses in the woods under moonlight, promising themselves to each other, come what may…" 

                “Well, if he wants to play Pegasus Knight and Prince In The Moonlight, he knows he’s gotta come home so I can cry noisily and blow my nose through the whole thing,” Lissa insists. “He wouldn’t cut his father and I out of that.” 

                “I’m not saying I’d be happy either,” Sumia says, “just that it seems awful likely, doesn’t it?” 

                “Nuh uh,” Lissa scoffs. “He’d have to have hit his head reaaaal hard to think he could get away with that.” 

                Sumia sighs.

                “They seemed so happy to be going off with the Cabal,” Sumia says, looking up at Chrom again, who nods shortly. “Why would they walk away?”

                Chrom doesn’t know. He doesn’t think eloping sounds right, either, unless he stretches his imagination a little. It wouldn’t be surprising for the two to make things a lot more grandiose than necessary. It would be highly unusual for either to let that grandeur run away with them.

                “Does Morgan know?” Lissa asks, with a huff.

                “Unless Frederick found him and told him, not yet,” Chrom says.  

                “Well, don’t tell him until tomorrow, if you can. He doesn’t need to spend his birthday knowing his friends have walked off,” Lissa says. She gives a long annoyed groan. “Where did Owain even get the idea?! Cynthia’s not that stupid! Ugh!”

                She sinks into her seat and flops against the table, head on her arms. It’s difficult for Chrom to process that she’s about to have her “first” child when she still throws tantrums the same way she did when she was five. (But if he’s being fair, he hasn’t changed much from that age, either.) 

                Sumia pats Lissa’s shoulder lovingly, and she says: “Oh, he’s not stupid, Lissa…”

                Lissa just groans again. “I’m worried sick already! How could he be so stupid? And if this baby ever does a stupid thing like that, then it really means _I’m_ stupid, because they sure don’t get it from Lon’qu!”

                “Oh, Lissa, you’re not stupid…” But she doesn’t seem to be sure of what to say after that, so she just keeps petting Lissa’s shoulder.

                Sumia looks up at Chrom with a vaguely sheepish look. _She’s so sweet_ , Chrom thinks dimly, _and Lissa sure is smarter than she gives herself credit, but right now Owain does seem pretty stupid._

                “Well, let me know if you think of anything,” he says. “I’m going to go find Morgan and take him into city for the afternoon, and then deal with this nonsense later. I promise we’ll get your kids back as soon as possible.”

                Lissa just gives another noise, and Sumia gives a kind smile, and off Chrom goes, feeling like he hasn’t really learned much at all.

 

* * *

 

                It’s nearly noon and he hasn’t seen his eldest around yet, so Chrom assumes that means Lucina is up on the ramparts again, and Morgan may be with her. The distance around the castle walls is a few kilometers, but he knows Gerome would be coming from the north, so it narrows it down somewhat. Up to the ramparts he goes.

                And sure enough, there they both are. Lucina is sat right on the edge of the stone parapet, her legs trailing down, which is something Chrom has told her not to do about a million times but she'll likely continue on doing anyway. Her white dress flutters on the wind, as does her long hair. She is going to get a sunburn with bare shoulders like that, in the middle of the summer. (A lone father's worries pile up like that, Chrom thinks.) Morgan is behind her, feet squarely on the cobblestone of the walkway, merely leaning against the parapet. His expression is sour as he watches the goings-on below. Neither notices their father a short distance behind them.

                “But don’t you want to go?” Morgan asks her.

                “No, not really,” she says. “I ran around the world enough over the past five years, haven’t I?”

                “But this is different,” Morgan says. “I don’t want to just sit here while Mother could be out there.”

                Lucina looks back at her brother, her expression sharp –– _do you think I would?_ –– and in the process, she sees her father standing there, and whatever she had to say goes unsaid.

                “Father,” she says.

                Morgan turns, and he scowls.

                “Is that why you want to go?” Chrom asks. His stomach is sinking fast and hard.

                Lucina looks to Morgan, and Morgan looks away from both of them.

                “We’ve been over this, Morgan,” Chrom says. They’ve been over it so many times that he truly feels he shouldn’t have to say it again, but it stumbles out by rote: “When she returns, we’ll know. We don’t need to scrape every inch of the world, because we’ll know. Okay?”

                Morgan doesn’t reply for a second.  

                Then he says: “I’m not a kid. I don’t believe we’ll just magically know.”

                “Do you think it’s just a coincidence that your mother and I found each other and had the two of you in three timelines now, and that we could all be here together?” Chrom asks. “No. That’s some sort of fate. We’ll be together again.”

                Lucina purses her lips.

                “He’s right, Morgan,” she says, gently. “She’ll be back someday. In the meantime, we have a duty to rebuild the halidom.”

                Morgan just looks frustrated. Lucina looks back to the sky. Chrom knows they don’t believe it all the time. How could they, two children who have already seen their parents fall and never get back up again? But Chrom believes it, and he wants that to be enough for them, too. 

                Sometimes he wants to be right so badly that it hurts, but until the day it comes true, it is enough for him to make the world a better place.

                The kind of place she would want it to be.

                “You said you’d never stop searching,” Morgan says.

                Chrom looks at his son so plainly.

                “Who is going to run the halidom?” he asks. “If the three of us are running all over the world looking for her, who serves the people and maintains the peace your mother won with her _life_?”

                “Aunt Lissa,” Morgan says.

                “She is terrified of ruling,” Chrom says. “She wants to live out her life in a nice estate and have her babies and never have to think about the kinds of sacrifice Emmeryn had to make. I love her so much that I would never even _consider_ asking her to rule, let alone put that on her. Do _you_ want her to rule?”

                Morgan doesn’t have an answer to that. His hands ball into fists and then relax again, uncomfortably.

                “Didn’t think so,” Chrom says. And then, when there’s no reply and the silence shames him, he says, softer: “I’m sorry, Morgan. I really am. I wish we could, too, but we’re doing everything we can. Maybe when Valm and Plegia are stable again, maybe then we can talk about traveling.”

                Morgan nods slowly, but he hangs his head. Chrom sighs and opens his arms, and Morgan walks right into them, burying his face in his father’s tunic. Chrom embraces him gently, and he glances at Lucina, who looks at them both with some measure of pity and something that Chrom can’t place. Lucina’s like that, imperceptible sometimes, like her mother. 

                “When your mother comes back,” Chrom says, gently ruffling Morgan’s hair, “somehow, some way, we will be the first to know. I promise.” 

                Even as he says it, Chrom knows he’s making promises he can’t keep in any way, shape or form, but he doesn’t care. 

                “Okay,” Morgan murmurs, muffled.

                Chrom just holds him for a moment, and then Morgan pulls away, scrubbing at his eyes with the backs of his hands. The Mark of Naga first, and then the other one, the empty one.

                “Not a very good birthday so far, as it?” Chrom asks.

                “Pretty lousy,” Lucina agrees.

                “Sucks,” Morgan agrees.

                Chrom laughs, and despite it all, Morgan does too. 

                “Well, how about this, then. Let’s go into the city, like we planned,” Chrom says. “We’ll eat from street market stalls and we’ll people-watch and you can fill a whole book with your little observations, and we’ll see some little theater troupe or… something. Anything you want.”

                Morgan nods. He looks to Lucina.

                “You wanna come or are you going to watch for Gerome some more even though he’s not due for another few days?” he asks.

                “I am not doing that!” Lucina says, a pitch higher than really necessary, and she gives Morgan such a wide-eyed and warning look. “And no, I don’t want to come, I’m going to… I’m going to spend time with my little sister, seeing as you two are heading off.”

                Chrom looks between them both with an incredulous look.

                “Lucina, I don’t care if––"

                But Lucina is on her feet suddenly, walking away from them very fast, and Chrom can only call after her, “Let’s spar, later!” and hear her mumbled agreement before she’s gone, taking the slap-slap of her flat shoes with her.

                Chrom just laughs, and so does Morgan.

 

* * *

 

                By time they’re riding in an unmarked carriage to the center of the city, Morgan seems to be in much better spirits indeed, and the two of them quickly get to their usual joking and telling stories. Morgan tells good stories: he has his mother's imagination, but not a shred of her dignity — a truly wonderful combination in a teenage boy, Chrom thinks. It’s something that drives Lucina crazy sometimes, he knows, but that’s because she's less comfortable admitting that she, too, inherited the family goofiness.

                Morgan tells a story that goes like this:

 

 

> _A man has a vision of the perfect woman for him, and because he is a talented sculptor, he has the gift to sculpt this perfect woman from marble. He spends many years capturing her magnificence, and then he looks up at what he has created and realizes that no amount of refinement or polishing will make her real. But then he gets an idea, and he thinks that maybe — just maybe — there’s a way._
> 
> _So he packs her up on a horse and cart, and he travels for a year to reach the cradle of all life, Naga’s Cradle, and he hauls her all the way up the mountain. (It’s difficult, because she is a solid marble statue, right?) But at the top, when he can almost push her that one last bit into the lush green grass that surrounds the cradle, he slips._
> 
> _And the man watches his perfect statue fall down the mountain, a fall so long and steep that surely there isn’t anything at the foot of the hill but rubble, and the years of his life are for nothing._
> 
> _With nothing left of her, and nothing left for himself, he goes up the last bit to Naga’s cradle, because what else is there to do?_
> 
> _But as he comes up over the rise, he finds the woman waiting for him, and she kisses him and it’s all very romantic. They go and build a little cabin deep in the mountains, far away from the rest of the world, and there, they are happy._
> 
> _The end._
> 
>  

 

                “Just like that?” Chrom laughs. “Who told you this story?”

                “I read it,” Morgan says, and he laughs. “Well, maybe I changed some things, to make it better, but I got the idea from a book.”

                “So what’s the moral?” Chrom asks.

                “Nothing,” Morgan says, and they both know that isn’t true, but Chrom lets it go, because he’s in the mood to let things go. “Nothing at all.”

                And Chrom looks at his son, this perfect boy — or young man, now — and he feels utterly delighted to be his father. He’s not sure what it is in that very moment, but he feels it fiercer than he has in a long time, in this silly moment with Morgan crammed next to him in the carriage. He watches Morgan laugh hard, nose scrunched up and his ears reddened, arms wrapped around himself as he laughs at nothing at all, and then something out of the carriage catches his eye and he leans up against the glass.

                “Let’s get off here, I’m sick of this carriage,” Morgan says. “Let’s go!” 

                So they do, signalling the driver to stop and then hopping out. There’s a bit of fanfare at first –– unmarked or not, only important people have _carriages ––_ but Chrom and Morgan both slip into the busy mid-day foot traffic and its obscurity within fifty feet. In plain-looking tunics and breeches, the only thing that could mark them as royalty is Falchion at Chrom’s hip and the glimpse of Morgan’s Mark when his overlong sleeve rolls past his wrist.

                “What first?” Chrom asks. 

                “Food,” Morgan declares, so off they go up the winding streets, ducking around crowds and lingering around food stalls to see which smells most tempting and who shouts their specials the loudest. 

                Ylisstol has changed much in Chrom’s lifetime, and if he thinks about it, perhaps food would be the best way to see it. While the Exalt’s table had never been bare, even in the hideous lean years of his youth, the people had once starved. Now the streets are bountiful: foodstalls have rosy-cheeked women rushing new plates of food between cookshop and stall, shops are hung with bright banners with painted blue letters, people meander about with fresh hot foods between their fingertips. And gods, the selections –– pie shops and ale houses, dried fish and vegetables, cheeses and griddle cakes. Brandied carrots, little folded-paper parcels of walnuts, wild cherries by the handful and dishes of peas boiled and buttered. 

                Few royals would be caught amongst these sorts, delicious as they are, but Chrom likes these little trips, rare as they are.

                “Should we see a play?” Chrom calls to Morgan, who is getting ahead of him down the street. By time he gets closer, Morgan has stopped at an alleyway, peering down it curiously.

                “Morgan?” Chrom calls again. 

                Morgan keeps staring down the alley, but he does not get any closer. Chrom asks, "What are you looking at, Morgan?"

                "Are they going to kill it, Father?" 

                Chrom joins his son and looks down the alley. There's a handful of men down the short passageway, in a courtyard. Dogs are barking at a tremendous ox, which skitters back and forth on thick hooves, massive body heaving. Chrom can see the whites of the animal's eyes even from this distance.

                "Probably," he says to Morgan. “Do you want to see a play?"

                "I want to watch," Morgan says. "I read about how it's done but I've never seen it."

                "You've seen us hunt deer and hogs," Chrom says. "I can't imagine it's much different."

                "But it is!" Morgan exclaims. "Look at how big it is!"

                And then he's off down the alley, leaving Chrom to shrug and follow. The alley is barely big enough for the ox to have been lead down in the first place, and Chrom nudges his way around a few onlookers to catch up with the boy, who has quickly threaded his way through the people to the mouth of the courtyard.

                "Morgan," he calls. "Sorry, sorry."

                A few heads turn to him and start murmuring to each other. Chrom ignores them, only to find his son under the hands of a broad-shouldered man, who asks: "What are you doing here, little one?"

                "Morgan," Chrom says. "Come on. We're not supposed to be here."

                "But I want to see," Morgan protests.

                The butcher catches Chrom's eye and fixes him with a hearty smile. Chrom knows that look — the look of _knowing_. This butcher is in the presence of the Exalt, and all Chrom can do is appreciate that the atmosphere is not made overly formal.

                "Does the lad know where the meat on his table comes from?" the butcher chuckles.

                "He has been on a war campaign," Chrom says, pointedly. "He's seen plenty of slaughtered hogs and deer."

                "Ah," says the butcher. "But what of an ox? Not every day you see that.”

                "No," Chrom says. "I suppose not."

                "Let's see it!" Morgan begs, and he turns quickly back to the sight before them. The ox is braying, swinging at the dogs but missing as they nimbly leap away, avoiding the broad stroke of the ox's horns. And then, when Chrom hesitates to respond, Morgan adds: "Its my birthday!"

                "It is," Chrom admits.

                “Let’s watch, dad," Morgan says, and Chrom does.

                The foreman carries a poll-axe, a long-handled axe with a hammer-like back. He weighs it in his hands, the same way Frederick might test a heavy axe between his hands at a blacksmith's shop, and the rolled cuffs of his shirt-sleeves grow taut with the flex of his biceps. He tests a swing once, and then twice, the ox lined up some distance away, held in place by the dogs. 

                "He's going to stun it," Morgan says. Chrom nods, curtly.

                The foreman turns the poll-axe in his hands, hammer-side in, and then surges forward with the swing. Chrom flinches when the hammer falls between the beast's eyes, stunning it cold. It stumbles to its knees with a groan and then hits the ground chest-first so hard that Chrom imagines he feels the earth tremble under his feet. The people let up a cheer. Morgan trembles under his hands, something between alarm and excitement.

                "Whoa," Morgan says, over the crowd. "Do you think Vaike is strong enough to do that?!"

                "I'd think so," Chrom says. He watches the men circle the fallen ox, producing ropes and beginning to bind the animal’s hind legs to a large wooden bar, which is connected to a set of pulleys.

                "Now they gotta suspend it," Morgan says. "They slit its throat to bleed it out, but it doesn't feel anything because it's out cold.”

                They watch for a moment as the men begin hoisting, hauling the beast up vertically in the air so its underbelly is long and exposed. The animal’s head lolls, and its eyes roll under its half-closed eyelids. Chrom feels a flicker of pity, but more than that, an impulse to look away.

                “Since when were you so interested in this stuff?” he asks Morgan. Morgan turns knowing eyes up at him.

                “Mother told me about a painting she saw once,” Morgan says. “A painting of an ox getting slaughtered. She said it was really beautiful, even if it was disgusting at the same time. Have you seen it?”

                “Not that I remember,” Chrom says, and he feels a pang of sorrow. _She would_ , he thinks.

                Then there's a noise, a loud and deep bellow of fear and anger, and Chrom looks up just in time to see the ox _thrash_. It cannot go far with its hind legs already tied and in the middle of being hoisted to the rafters, but it bucks at the spine hard. There's a loud crack, a snap -- the beam above has broken, leaving only the pulleys to carry the weight of the ox, dropping it a foot down onto its face. It struggles to find purchase with its hooves, but its legs don't move forward far enough.

                "Not good," Chrom says, and when Morgan seems transfixed by the sight, he just hoists his son up by the forearm and hauls him back into the courtyard, away from the baying dogs and shouting crowds. "Morgan!"

                "They didn't stun it!" Morgan exclaims. "Dad, dad, look--"

                Chrom doesn't need to look; the animal is thrashing and everyone is clearing the space in panic. He hears a scream of a dog caught under the thrashing animal's horns, and the dog lands some feet away from them with a dull thud. The dog gets up almost immediately but moves like a wounded creature, shy and wincing, vanishing between the sea of moving legs.

                "Move," Chrom orders, and then he just lifts Morgan out of the way and down the alley -- something of a difficult task. Morgan protests loudly, but Chrom doesn't hear it over the din of the crowd. Chrom puts his hand to his sword-belt, to the hilt of Falchion, but he need not draw. The man with the poll-axe is back.

                Chrom keeps his hand on his sword as the man starts swinging at the ox, from barely enough distance to avoid getting caught by those horns. Two blows do not do the work, and for a moment Chrom feels the temptation to intervene, but an upward stroke with the sharp end of the axe catches the ox along the jugular. The animal bellows, low and wet, and the thrashing slowly dies to nothing.

                Blood pools to the stone floor, dark like tar and spurting errantly from the animal’s throat. It keens once, and then twice more, and then the life goes from the ox’s eyes.

                A collective relief settles on the crowd. The man with the poll-axe doubles over, dropping the weapon and panting, hands on his knees.

                "Gods," says the butcher, once the crowd has quietened. "In my thirty years, I never seen something like that happen. Lord Exalt–– is your boy okay?"

                "I'm fine," Morgan says himself, brushing himself off. He's still staring at the ox, whose head lolls against the ground now, back-end still arched up in the air and suspended from the creaking pulleys. He dares move closer. “What happened?"

                "Didn't stun it hard enough, I imagine," the butcher says. "But I've seen him stun bigger many a time, so I don’t know what went wrong. Milord, you have my sincerest apologies."

                "It must have been an accident," Chrom says. "No harm done to us, at least. Is everyone alright?"

                The butcher glances around and nods quickly, satisfied at a mere glance.

                “I saw one of the dogs got snared, but that can happen on a good day," the butcher replies. "That's always a risk, when you're up against a creature almost two thousand pounds." 

                “Hmm,” Chrom murmurs, and he nods.

                “Father, look at how strong he is.”

                Morgan now stands at the foot of the great beast, looking up at the ox's exposed belly. He dares, even, to reach up and touch the soft underbelly, where the skin is thin and the hair short and sparse. Chrom watches his son quietly, somewhat troubled by these events but unable to put them to words. He watches Morgan put both hands on the ox's side and feel around the joint of the front leg, curiously. Morgan is standing in a thick pool of blood, his boots splattered black-red to the calves.

                Chrom sighs.

_What did you do for Morgan's birthday?_

_Oh, not much. His friends took off without him, so I took him to the market to cheer him up. The slaughter of an ox went wrong and he got covered in blood. Happy birthday._

                "Morgan," he says, for the umpteenth time. "Let's go, huh?"

                Morgan scarcely even looks his way, eyes still on the beast, but he says, "Okay."

                He picks his way around the thicker parts of the pools of blood to Chrom's side, and Chrom puts a hand between his shoulders to steer him out.

                "Thanks for the lesson," Morgan says to the butcher.

                "Thanks," Chrom adds, blandly.

                "Any time, any time," says the butcher. “I’ll have a cut sent to your table, milord, as always.”

                Chrom just raises a hand in parting, and he turns his back on the crowd, still pushing Morgan on. The boy carries on but cranes his neck to look back, and Chrom pays that no mind as long as he keeps moving.

                Back into the open street they go, squinting in the sunlight and putting up their hands to shade their eyes, and Chrom leads them back up the market lanes towards the meeting place for the carriage. As they walk, Morgan keeps his eyes on the toes of his boots, which clump with dirt and grit from the stone roadways.  

                “You know why people slaughter oxes, dad?” Morgan asks, voice low and thoughtful. 

                “Why?” Chrom asks, quite sick of the business but pleased to humor his child.

                “To celebrate a homecoming,” Morgan says.

                Chrom doesn’t know what to make of that. He spies the carriage up ahead and he reaches to put an arm around Morgan’s shoulders.

                “Then let’s get _you_ home, huh?” Chrom replies. “I’m sure there’s a birthday cake waiting for you at the castle.”

                Morgan grins and nods, and Chrom catches himself thinking that if the day gets any stranger, it'll probably be the most memorable birthday of Morgan's life.


	2. The Strange Birthday, part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A messenger arrives bearing a message from Owain and Cynthia, and Morgan's birthday slogs on. Though deeply troubled, Chrom decides to make the best of things by looking to the future. Others, however, stay grounded in the present –– Frederick sets out as trouble brews beyond Ylisstol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind comments on the first chapter; I'm going to make a point to reply to all of them, so by all means, tell me what you think if you are moved to do so! :) But for now, let's wrap up Morgan's birthday!
> 
> This chapter will be followed by a short interlude next week.
> 
> The poem included in this chapter is an excerpt by good ol' Percy Bysshe Shelley. While I understand its inclusion could seem unusual given the fantasy setting, Fire Emblem has referenced classic works before, so I felt Romantic works to be fitting for Owain and Cynthia. And, well, you'll see.

.

 

 

                Some time later, home again and with Morgan run off to get birthday wishes from his aunt and uncle, Chrom enters the throne room with the intent of catching up with what he’s put off all morning. The throne room is mostly empty, save a few courtiers, and so he makes the long walk down the stone walkway to his throne, where Frederick is standing. Frederick has his back to the door, and he is talking to a much-shorter person obscured from Chrom’s sight. Frederick is tall even next to most grown men, but he positively looms over children. 

                As he gets closer, he sees a peek of purple cape and long blonde hair, and he can’t help but smile a touch. Nowi catches sight of him around Frederick's side, and her eyes go as big as dinner plates.

                “Chrom!!" she squeaks. “You’re here!”

                She rushes him, as she is wont to do, and Chrom ends up with an armful of manakete girl, which is never unexpected but always surprising just the same. She practically climbs him, until she is right up in his arms, and Nowi perches there for a moment to kiss his forehead. She boxes his ears with her tiny hands, and then she grabs at his crown with a giggle.

                "Wow! This is nice, you sure upgraded! It's shiny."

                "Nice to see you too, Nowi," Chrom says, with a laugh, and he sets her down on her feet. She takes his crown with her, clutched between her hands like treasure. He looks at her fondly. “It's not bad, huh?"

                She makes to place it on her own head, but Frederick deftly plucks it from her grasp before she can.

                "Aww," Nowi pouts. "Nowi wanted to try it."

                “Another time,” Chrom promises. If she’s here, he’s curious as to what news is coming his way –– she’s a part-time messenger for Ylisse’s various relief armies, and if she’s here, it means she has something interesting to pass along.

                “Nowi is here with a message,” Frederick says, as if reading his mind. Chrom catches his eye for a second, but Frederick just gives the girl a nudge on the shoulder. “When you are ready, little one.”

                “Don’t you patron-eyes me, Fred _rick_ ,” Nowi replies, and then she sticks her little forked tongue out at him. She then turns back to Chrom with pride, chest puffed up and feet pigeon-toed.

                "I've been told to tell you a message," Nowi says. "On behalf of Lord Owain, Duke of the Eastlands.”

                Chrom gives Frederick a look, and Frederick just gives him a look that says something like _this is patently absurd but any information is good information._ Chrom looks back to Nowi with a bracing smile.

                "Really," Chrom says. “You know, I was informed he went missing just this morning, and I’ve been pretty concerned. What is my nephew up to?”

                “He didn’t go _missing_ ,” Nowi chirps. “I know _exactly_ where he is.”

                “He abandoned his post,” Chrom says.

                Nowi pauses, mouth pursed. Both Chrom and Frederick watch her for a moment, waiting for some sort of real answer.

                “Well, maybe,” Nowi admits. “But that was over a week ago. It takes a lot more time for letters to get to you by horseback than me flying, right? I saw him just yesterday.”

                That’s promising.

                “I’m listening, Nowi,” Chrom says. “Why don’t you tell me the message?”

                "It's a poem," Nowi says. "Don't make fun if I don’t sound like one of your fancy court people, okay?"

                Chrom nods dutifully, but he isn’t sure what to make of any of this. He sits on the stairs in front of his throne and he waits for her as she fluffs herself up and clears her throat.

                And then she recites:

 

 

 

> _I am the daughter of Earth and Water,_
> 
> _And the nursling of the Sky;_
> 
> _I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;_
> 
> _I change, but I cannot die._
> 
> _For after the rain when with never a stain_
> 
> _The pavilion of Heaven is bare,_
> 
> _And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams_
> 
> _Build up the blue dome of air,_
> 
> _I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,_
> 
> _And out of the caverns of rain,_
> 
> _Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,_
> 
> _I arise and unbuild it again._

 

 

                Chrom frowns, and the first thing out of his mouth is "huh?"

                "That was it," Nowi says, brightly, evidently proud of herself for memorizing such a thing. She laces her fingers together and sort of hovers on the spot, watching for his reaction.

                “I… don't have a clue what that means," he admits. 

                "Nor do I," Nowi replies, blithely.

                "Are you sure that's how the poem goes?" Chrom asks.

                "Yup," Nowi says.

                Chrom looks at Frederick, who looks deeply troubled. Not a particularly unusual expression for Frederick, by any means, but neither of them have ever heard of a child of the royal family running off for such inexplicable reasons. Chrom lets the silence sit for a moment, wondering what it all means.

                “Repeat it again,” Frederick says, and Nowi does. Three times more, in fact, and it is no more clear the fourth time than it had been the first, though Chrom does more or less memorize it quickly.

                "I'm confused," Chrom says. “Is this supposed to explain why they left?”

                “Don’t worry, I’m confused too,” Nowi says. “It doesn’t really explain it. They didn’t really tell me what it’s supposed to mean, but then again they didn’t tell me much of anything.”

                “Nowi,” Frederick says, a little warning. “If you know any information beyond this poem, then you should tell Lord Chrom.”

                Nowi shakes her head.

                “They told me the poem, and that I was to deliver the message to you, and nothin’ else.”

                "Owain is usually a _little_ literary," Chrom says. "It's not unusual for him to write poetic letters, but usually it's about heroism or adventure. This..."

                Chrom shakes his head.

                “If I may, milord,” Frederick says. He is still holding the letter from this morning, the green seal hanging open. “Perhaps we should send someone out to speak with Owain, and Cynthia. There is no reason they should not offer us a full and clear explanation.”

                “Well, we have to find them eventually, but it would take days to get to the Cabal,” Chrom replies. “And longer to find them –– assuming we even could.”

                “We know where they were as of yesterday, thanks to Nowi,” Frederick says. “Perhaps she would be kind enough to direct us there, or carry a letter back immediately.”

                Nowi looks up at Frederick with a sudden scowl.

                “That’s not fair,” she says. “That’s a really long flight on my own! I had to fly as fast as I could!”

                “If that’s what the Exalt asks of you, it would be your duty to,” Frederick says. “Are you not employed by the Exalt as a messenger?”

                Nowi shakes her head vigorously. “She said I could stay here after instead of flying back, and that you’d set up the nicest bed and make a whole feast for me.”

                She looks up at Chrom with big eyes.

                “She _promised_ ,” she repeats.

                Frederick frowns, and he looks notably put-off by this reaction. He crouches to Nowi’s level and reaches to touch her shoulder, but this just seems to displease her more –– she’s always been fickle like that, happy to be pet and indulged but liable to bite when bossed around. Chrom worries for Frederick’s fingers about as much as he worries about getting back in touch with his nephew.

                “Cynthia does not have that kind of authority,” Frederick says, sternly. “Nowi, this is a very important matter.”

                “Oh, let her go,” Chrom says, gently –– his best attempt to placate her, in case she refuses to go at all. You can’t _force_ a manakete to do anything. “Frederick, why don’t you go let the kitchens know to prepare a feast just for her? And Nowi, I’ll have a nice big bed for you, made up for tonight! And you can hold onto this.”

                He takes off his crown and offers it to her. Nowi tentatively takes it, watching him unblinking, suspicious.

                “But,” Chrom adds, “tomorrow morning, first thing, I _would_ like you to carry a letter back. Could you do that for me?”

                Nowi puffs her cheeks out at him, but she nods. Frederick sighs.

                “We’d be losing time,” Frederick says.

                “It’s just one night,” Chrom replies. He watches Nowi’s eyes finally go to the crown in her hands, and a smile blossoms on her face as she puts it on her own head. It slips down her forehead and she pushes it up again.

                Frederick doesn’t look amused at all. Chrom gives him a pointed look.

                “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Chrom says, straightening up.

                “I know, sire, but something isn’t right,” Frederick says. “I am loathe to request this at such short notice, but I believe I should ride out personally to speak to him.”

                Chrom frowns, but he doesn’t disagree. Someone will have to go, even though he had anticipated sending someone _else_ embedded in the running of the army, like Sully or Stahl, likely with Maribelle as the word of law. He hadn’t imagined sending Frederick personally.

                “Well, it’s short notice,” Chrom says. “Maybe Sumia could go with you, or Lon’qu.”

                Frederick shakes his head.

                “It would be a conflict of interest, milord,” he says. “Any of their parents would be.”

                “Your son’s back soon, and you wouldn’t be back for weeks,” Chrom points out. “You haven’t seen Gerome in months.”

                Frederick seems to hesitate, but he nods, dutifully. Frederick is nothing if not dutiful, regardless of task. He bows his head briefly.

                “I must insist,” Frederick says. “It is my responsibility, as knight captain to our new recruits, to impress upon them the invioable sanctity of duty. Owain and Cynthia’s desertion is a black mark on my name, and so I insist on bringing them home personally. I’ll leave tonight, if you allow me this.”

                Chrom looks at Frederick and feels an odd touch of relief to have such a trusted friend, who would ride out to bring their friends’ children home at such short notice.

                “Well, I’ll send a message back with Nowi regardless,” Chrom says, “and you head out as soon as you’re ready.”

                Frederick nods, and then Nowi tugs at Chrom’s cloak, prompting him to look down at her again.

                “Chrom?” she asks. “Can we play before I go?”

                “Oh, Nowi, I’m sorry,” Chrom says. “I don’t really have time today. But I’ll tell you what, it’s Morgan’s birthday dinner tonight. Do you want to come? There will be cake.”

                “Nowi _loves_ cake,” Nowi says.

                She licks her lips, wild and exaggerated.

                “Will Morgan be terribly upset if I miss dinner?” Frederick asks. “I’d like to head out as soon as possible.”

                Chrom dares laugh.

                “If you don’t want to eat bear meat,” Chrom says, “you could just say so.”

                Frederick scoffs, but there’s a laugh in there. Chrom can see it in the lines of his face, even if he doesn’t want to show it.

                “Give him my regards, then,” Frederick says. “Nowi, will you come with me to talk about my course? I will walk you to the kitchens after.”

                Nowi looses herself from Chrom’s cape, instead gluing herself to Frederick’s side.

                “OK, for food I'll go. See ya later, Chrom!” she says, fickle as ever. She waves.

                Chrom waves back, just to be polite.

                “See you in a bit, Nowi,” he replies. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

                And then they part ways, Frederick and Nowi to their discussion, and Chrom off to court, where he intends to spend at least a few hours between now and dinner embroiled in matters of the halidom. After all -- he has a letter to write.

 

* * *

 

                If it were a normal day, perhaps his intentions would be carried through, but it’s not a normal day at all. It’s a strange day –– a very strange day.

                Chrom is at his desk, miscellaneous papers and books stacked almost clear over his head but untouched in favour of the very blank sheet before him that is supposed to be a letter to his nephew. He has a million ideas of what to say but no order to string them together with, but he hopes being in his office will inspire the peace of mind to get it done. It’s Ada’s old office, so every inch of wall space is covered in shelves and books and items from their travels, and Chrom feels it generally improves his work ethic to have her presence breathing productivity down his neck.

                He has to be firm but fair.

                Chrom chooses to touch pen to page for the first time, and it is precisely then that Morgan throws open the door of the office so hard that the brass handle dings off the bookcase crammed behind the door. That crumbles his resolve to work like a house of cards.

                “Morgan,” Chrom says, alarmed. They’re about to row for the third time in one day, and Chrom has never felt more to blame for it, because he knows exactly what’s coming. He looks to his aides and waves them out. “What’s wrong?”

                “Aunt Lissa says that Owain and Cynthia went missing,” Morgan says, indignantly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

                “A lot of reasons, Morgan,” Chrom replies. “Close the door, please. And don’t––”

                Morgan slams it hard. Chrom heaves a sigh, and his temper flares. He and Ada had both been surprised to find out she was much more adept at handling tantrums than he ever was, and that is no less true now than it was the first time a screaming Ryn –– then named Lucina –– had been put into his arms. He just can’t think rationally when people are screaming, whether it’s his baby or his teenager or his eldest daughter.

                “Morgan, they did not go missing. They walked away from their posts,” he says, tightly.

                “They wouldn’t do that,” Morgan shoots back. “ _Think_ about it! It doesn’t make any sense. Both of them LIVE for heroism. They’re not going to walk away from their responsibilities."

                “Well, they did, because they’ve already gone and done it. Maybe you can explain it,” Chrom says.

                Morgan’s fists are tight and his shoulders are squared.

                “He was thrilled to get a title and be made a lord and get to lead his own guard! Why would he run away from that?” Morgan demands. 

                "If he didn't leave, do you think his second in command is _lying_?" Chrom asks, patiently as he can, but this is the third tense conversation with Morgan today, and his patience is wearing thin.

                "Yes," Morgan says. "Absolutely."

                "Okay, so what _proof_ of that is there?” Chrom demands.

                "Maybe the second-in-command seized control of the Cabal, and ousted Owain, and Cynthia followed," Morgan says.

                "That's a pretty high accusation, Morgan!” Chrom replies firmly, but he’s already raised his voice. "Come on. Don’t make up a story. Why would Owain leave his post?"

                Morgan gives an angry noise.

                "Maybe if he was ordered, or he felt there was a higher calling!”

                “An order from who? And what higher calling is there than to serve the Exalt?” Chrom demands. He feels like a right ass at that, but he pushes past caring about selfishness right now, until he’s standing on his feet and shouting at Morgan over the desk.

                "I'm not a _mindreader_ ,” Morgan says, hotly. When he has nothing more to argue, he snaps: “This birthday is the worst!”

                “Tell me about it,” Chrom retorts. 

                Morgan turns on his heel and storms back to the door, flinging it open and then continuing to storm his way out. Chrom promptly shoves a stack of papers off his desk, just out of frustration, and then he gets down on his hands and knees to angrily pick it all up again. The aides scurry back in to help, but he waves them off.

 _I’m an idiot,_ he thinks angrily, _but at least I’m not running away from my duty._

 

* * *

 

                When Chrom walks in, Lucina looks at him from her place on the window bench in her room. She’s got stationary on her lap and a pen between her fingers, but she’s thinking instead of writing. Her hair is still windblown from this morning and all the running around in her afternoon training session. The tip of her nose is sunburnt, so he’s sure her shoulders are, too, under her tunic. He feels a little cross at her for that –– how many times had he told her? –– but he’s cross about just about everything right now.

                "Is he still mad?" Chrom asks her, delicately as he can, though even an hour later he's still a little mad himself. He figures Lucina would know –– she and Morgan have never been as close as they are now, some four hundred days after their mother’s disappearance.

                "Yes," Lucina says, "but that's not really a surprise, I don’t think.”

                "What do you mean?" Chrom asks.

                Lucina looks at him with a raised brow.

                “Our friends went missing,” she says.

                “I don’t see you slamming doors about it,” Chrom replies.

                “I’m seven years older,” Lucina reminds him, patiently. “And I didn’t ask to go with them in the first place.”

                “If I let him go,” Chrom points out, “he’d be missing too, probably.”

                Lucina purses her lips. Chrom watches her for a moment, and he doesn’t want to be cross with her, too, and she seems to sense that. She shifts in her seat to properly face him.

                "Father, we've seen apocalypse and dragon fire and countless battles, on top of crossing time to even _be_ here," she says. "Is it not patronizing to keep us home like little children?"

                “ _What?_ "

                "Isn't it?" Lucina says, a little quieter, like she isn't sure herself. 

                He supposes she has a point, though. They have been through far, far more than he had at fifteen, or even twenty-two. But is it wrong of him to want his children to be at peace, instead of immediately throwing them into more duty? Is it so bad to want to protect them from the evil things that still lurk in the world? _For once?_

                "Are you upset too?" Chrom asks, tired. "Are you itching to go, too?"

 _Leave me?_ he almost says, but he doesn’t.

                “I respect your judgement," Lucina says. She glances aside. He doesn’t feel she’s being honest with him, but that’s as much Lucina as her windblown hair is, or her mismatched eyes, or the way she so fiercely defends her family, even against other family members.

                She’s always protected him, especially.

                "Where do you want to go?" Chrom asks.

                Lucina looks to him again.

                "Gerome wants to see the valley, when he’s earned a break from his duties,” she says. "See if anything can be done for the wild wyvern population. I'd like to help rebuild it, if I can.”

                Chrom nods.

                "You're not happy helping us rebuild here?" Chrom asks.

                Lucina looks at him plainly.

                "It's not that I'm not happy doing that, Father," Lucina says. "I just... sometimes I want to commit myself to something away from war.”

                "You deserve some peace," he agrees. "You've gone through more than anyone. But… I hope you can understand why I want you and your brother to stay home with me.”

                Lucina smiles, very thinly, and she nods.

                “I do, Father,” Lucina says. “And I don’t want to leave you if you want us here... but Morgan had a point, earlier. Sometimes I don’t think we’ll find her by just sitting here and waiting.”

                Chrom watches her for a moment, and she watches him, and neither of them say anything. In that moment he misses his wife, the mother of his children, so much that it saws at his heart like a dull knife. He can almost believe he can literally _feel_ it.

                “I see,” Chrom says, finally, quietly.

                Lucina looks disappointed by this reply, but Chrom’s not sure what else he can tell her.

                Instead, he just asks: “Do you think we can still turn this birthday around, or is it that bad already?”

                “It’s always worth trying,” Lucina hums, and she taps her pen against her chin in thought, the feather bending against her skin. “He might still be reading in the chapel pews, if you want to talk to him.”

                Chrom feels he’s done quite a bit of running around as it is, but he loves his son, even when he’s angry. It wouldn’t do to leave the issue alone.

                “Want to come with me?” Chrom offers. “We can get that spar in afterwards.”

                “Sure,” Lucina says.

                So together the two head in that direction, in relative quiet. Lucina walks slightly ahead of him, her slippers slap-slapping on the stone floors, and Chrom follows behind without saying much. They pass by several maids and serving boys, all of whom scatter to the sides of the halls and bow as they pass.

                Chrom wonders, sometimes, if his rule will always be characterized this way: great progress on strengthening Ylisse after the war, a small step towards civilizing what’s left of Plegia, a minor presence in Valm in the wake of civil wars… followed by a scattershot smattering of arguments and tantrums in his inner circles, all a product of grief that would take years to truly settle.

                His friends, too, seem somewhat torn. While most have come back to their peacetime life with a let-bygones-be-bygones enthusiasm, there are a few people who are tense, strained. Maribelle is a little sourer these days, and yet paradoxically more tender with him, as if he might explode with feeling at any moment. Sumia expresses guilt at having read too many books without Ada, who had once been one of the very few members of her book club, but yet she reads so slowly now as to not increase the number to catch up on. Everyone reacts in their own way, but more than that, Chrom feels a dozen pinpricks in his heart at seeing that most of them have moved on. He’s delighted for them and their lives, their ability to travel for pleasure and take up politics and crafts and settling land in a new world of peace, but it comes with a sadness at Ada having missed it.

                And though any resentment he might have had for her choice is long gone, he still thinks sometimes that their children deserved to come out of all this horror with a mother. Perhaps she owed it to them more than the children who would have seen Grima rise a thousand years from now.

                But no, he has to remind himself. There’s still a chance they can have both. There’s a chance his children won’t have to grieve for another year or two before spending the rest of their lives wondering.

                And maybe –– just maybe –– they do have to look.

                “Lucina,” Chrom says.

                “Yes, Father?” she replies.

                “After we find Cynthia and Owain,” he says, “I will _consider_ taking a trip out to the Mila tree, just you, Morgan and I. Would you come?”

                Lucina stops, and she looks back at him. He finds himself stopped, and then she flings herself into his arms. Though startled, he embraces her, too.

                “Yes,” she says, empathetically, into his shoulder. “Yes, in a heartbeat.”

                “Okay, then,” Chrom says, and he smooths her hair over the back of her head for a moment. “We’ll consider it, okay?”

                She normally isn’t so prone to emotional reactions, and when she pulls away, she’s composing herself immediately, just like her mother would. She brushes her hair from her face and looks up at him with a nod that isn’t supposed to be _too_ enthusiastic.

                “It would mean a lot to me,” Lucina says, “but especially to Morgan.”

                Chrom nods.

                And then he asks: “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

                Lucina pauses, but she nods, and he trusts that nod.

                “He doesn’t remember much before coming to us in this timeline,” Lucina says. “The only personal tragedy he knows is Mother going away –– everything else is just stories to him.”

                She pauses again.

                “I think it’s just really hard on him.”

                Chrom nods –– he knows this, he does, but sometimes he needs to hear it again, especially when his Morgan is usually the most effusive, optimistic of their little lot. Even between moments of grief and anger, he is the most playful and mischievous. It makes it worse, then, to see him so upset.

                “But do you think he’s going to be okay?” Chrom repeats.

                “He’ll grow up a bit more,” Lucina says, “but he’ll be okay.”

                They carry on down the hall and through the chapel doorway, where Lucina’s voice becomes small as it echos into the cavernous arched ceilings. It’s empty save for two maids with brooms and dustpans sweeping up a great deal of broken multi-coloured glass. Chrom realizes, somewhat belatedly, that one of the twelve-foot windows at the head of the chapel has been broken out almost completely, as though someone very tall had burst through it.

                “Wow,” Lucina says. “What happened?”

                One of the maids looks up and gives a squeak of a gasp.

                “Milord!” she says.

                This prompts Frederick to step out from where he is obscured in the ambulatory, a stern look on his face.

                "What the hell happened?" Chrom asks.

                "Ah," Frederick says. "I was hoping to have that repaired before you noticed."

                Chrom feels little amused at that, and certainly less concerned. He had broken a few in his years, though none as big as the stained glass windows in the apsidioles, and Frederick had certainly handled those as well.

                "How fast did you expect to replace antique stained glass without me noticing?" Chrom asks.

                "I would have kept you from the chapel for a week, I suppose," Frederick says.

                “So what happened?" Chrom asks, stepping towards the window to look. “Aren’t you supposed to be heading out?”

                "Nowi," Frederick says, "I'm afraid I don't know what happened, milord. I reached to take her arm and she panicked."

_Oh no._

                "Where is she now?" Chrom asks, eyebrows furrowing.

                "We do not know, and for that you have my sincerest apologies,” Frederick sighs. "A search has been called, but we suspect she is returning to Owain."

                Chrom sighs, too.

                "Damn," he says, "I wanted to send a message back with her."

                "Alas," Frederick says. “I will have to carry it myself. Volatile manaketes!"

                “Surely something set her off,” Lucina pipes up. “She’s not _that_ volatile.” 

                Chrom looks to his daughter, who is watching Frederick with some suspicion. Frederick shakes his head and drops his eyes.

                “I confess I pressed her for more information on what Owain and Cynthia might have told her,” Frederick says.

                “Frederick, what were you thinking?” Chrom asks. “What did you say?”

                “She refused to even tell me where they were headed,” Frederick says defensively, pointedly. “I need that information to track them down.”

                “Did you get it?” Lucina asks.

                “Barely!” Frederick scowls. “I suspect I will still have to use the old method, with a wyvern, to find them from above.” 

                “Let’s hope Cherche is feeling up to a journey,” Chrom says, with a sigh.

                Frederick just gives a noise of agreement, and Chrom moves past him to stand at the window and look out it at the town below. There's nothing on the horizon, no sign nor scale of a dragon, and Chrom feels an unusual sinking feeling that he can't explain.

                “Morgan,” Lucina says, suddenly.

                Morgan’s poked his head up over the top of the pews, having clearly been hunched down out of sight with his book, and he’s looking at them all with some dismay.

                "Morgan,” Chrom says. “Want to come down to the courtyard and spar with us before dinner?”

                Morgan looks at Lucina, who gives him a pointed look, and then to Frederick, who is frowning even deeper now. He rises to his feet and slips out of the pews, his book tucked under his arm, and he doesn't take his eyes off of Frederick until he reaches Chrom’s feet.

                “Okay,” he says, looking up at Chrom. He’s a little sharp about it, but he agrees.

                “Let’s do that, then,” Chrom says. He glances to Frederick. “You’re still headed out today, right?”

                “In another hour or two, perhaps,” Frederick says. “I must speak with Cherche now.”

                “Alright,” Chrom says. Frederick bows his head and walks away down one of the side passages, leaving the maids to finish cleaning up. Chrom puts a hand to Morgan’s shoulder and looks down at him. “When Frederick brings Owain and Cynthia home, we’ll discuss going to the Mila Tree. Alright?”

                Morgan seems a tiny bit brighter at that, and maybe even optimistic.

                “Okay,” he says.

                “Now,” Chrom says. “Sparring before dinner. A book or a blade?”

                That gets a small smile.

                “A blade,” he says, delighted.

                Chrom nods, and Lucina smiles. Maybe the birthday can be salvaged after all.

 

* * *

 

                Chrom knows very well in his heart that someday, his children will be able to trounce him cleanly. He can tell already when they spar, as if he’s looking into his own future and seeing them put him out of the ring or on the ground with ease. Lucina has mimicked his training from the time she could first walk, but she’s lighter, leaner, picking up in speed what she has less of in strength. Morgan is his mother’s child first and foremost, brimming with potential for all sorts of skills, but determined to take the path of the tactician first and foremost. He will never be a Lord like most of his line before him, but he’ll have any Lord at his beck and call if he’s diligent enough in his studies.

                (And Ryn, well, little Ryn can already trounce him just by having a soiled diaper. She’s off to a good start, too, if he won’t even try to face that. _Kidding, Ada. I’m kidding._ )

                But that said, he’s not so sure if he will ever be able to ever trounce them again. Chrom has trouble thinking he is already old enough that his children have already surpassed him, but sometimes, when he has beads of sweat rolling down the back of his neck and he’s having to parry off harder, faster swings, he thinks it might be true. That might be a little harder to make peace with, but he supposes he can always look back on the “Marth” days, where he and Ada had unknowingly put their daughter on her behind in the Feroxi arena.

                (Okay, mostly Ada. He hadn't exactly been in his best shape, up against a "boy" who had matched his style so perfectly.)

                Chrom sits on the courtyard bench now, a wooden practice sword laid across his lap. He watches Morgan and Lucina trade blows, Lucina taking ground on her brother with some ease only to end up jabbed in the ribs when she misses some blind spot. Lucina recovers quickly, but when Morgan just stands there to laugh at her, she swats him hard on the butt with the flat side of her practice sword. Morgan laughs right after his “ow.”

                “That was cheap,” Morgan says. “Sore loser.”

                “I am not,” Lucina says, and she squares her shoulders.

                “He did get you,” Chrom points out. “First hit, you lose.”

                “Yes, I know,” Lucina says, a little bossily, and when Morgan gestures at her with the sword, she presses it down with hers. “Don’t point with that, it’s not good swordsmanship.”

                “It’s _wood_ ,” Morgan says.

                “Listen to your sister,” Chrom adds. “Don’t point with the sword.”

                “You come spar, Father,” Lucina says. “You did three rounds at the start and you’ve sat out since!”

                “Yeah,” Morgan says. And then, with the tone of someone who has just had an epiphany: “Let’s do two on one.”

                “As in both of you against me?” Chrom asks.

                “I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Lucina says.

                Chrom laughs, and he stands up, sword in-hand. He reaches for a second from the rack; though he’s not as talented as Say’ri or Lon’qu with two swords, it’s probably prudent to wield two regardless.

                “One round of two-on-one,” he agrees.

                He will regret this, he knows, but Morgan and Lucina are both having a good time. 

                They both move back to give him space. Chrom is barely in position when he watches Morgan elbow Lucina gently and lean up to whisper something. He knows what was said the second they swap places –– the Falchion is meant to be used as a hybrid sword-axe, and therefore requires a heavy swing from a dominant hand; Chrom is right-handed, and so his right swordarm will be the bigger threat.

                By putting Lucina on Chrom’s left, Lucina can easily overcover the weaker arm, while Morgan can rely on his father’s good will and reluctance to _actually_ do harm to his children. It’s a gamble –– Chrom could overtake Morgan swiftly and then leave Lucina with two swords to fend off, but it could also end in Morgan’s favour.

                 _Morgan’s good,_ Chrom thinks, but he knows exactly where Morgan learned that trick. It was Ada’s. She’d pulled something similar on him for the first time in this very courtyard, and he hadn’t realized it until she’d done it on three separate rounds.

                And so Chrom feels quite smug to have predicted this, right up until the moment that Lucina and Morgan approach him at once, and suddenly — very suddenly — he is too busy blocking strikes to be smug.

                They’re good. Especially good in a pair. He has Lucina’s sword caught against his left when he raises his right to block Morgan’s sword, and he’s forced to concede two steps to them to have enough room to disengage and parry again. They both swing again, and once more, he loses two steps. They’ll keep going if he lets them, and they’re spaced apart quite carelessly, so he moves between them.

                It’s more dangerous to stick between them, as either could get bold and strike for his back, but this way he can turn to keep Lucina on his right instead. The blows come faster, harder, and he parries them back just the same. Both have a shorter reach than his own, so even with a sword shorter than Falchion, he can dance just out of their reach while still having plenty of room to parry.

                And then, critically, Morgan swings a little low. He’s a little far to the right, but Chrom takes it, moving in that direction, swinging to catch his son on the shoulder with his blade.

                He doesn’t make it. The toe of his boot catches a mislaid stone on the cobblestone floor, and he finds himself tripping, instead. Morgan scurries out of his way, and Chrom stumbles to the ground, neither hand free for parrying. Before he even scrapes his knuckles on the stone, Lucina takes him out from behind, bringing the flat of her sword down between his shoulder-blades.

                Oof.

                “Point!” Morgan sings out.

                “Well, good use of your surroundings,” Chrom says, laughing. “I think my knees are going to hurt for days now.”

                “Sorry,” Lucina says, sheepish but not at all _really_ sorry. He can’t blame her. He’s proud of her every time she makes a fool of him. She sets aside her sword and reaches her hand to him, and he lets her help him up to his feet. Morgan is still grinning.

                “I thought I knew what you were up to when you swapped sides,” Chrom says. He glances at the place they’d started at, and the rough trajectory to the lip in the cobblestone. “But you wanted me to follow you, huh?”

                “Yup,” Morgan says. “Pretty good, huh?”

                “It’s great,” Chrom says. He sets aside his swords and then puts his arm around Morgan, crouching down slightly to point him in the direction of his sister. “Now try to pull that on Lucina.”

                “I wouldn’t fall for that,” Lucina says. “I just saw you do it.”

                “Maybe not that,” Morgan asks, mischievously, and he raises his sword. “Let’s go again!”

                “I’ve been in every round this afternoon,” Lucina points out. “On top of my training, which you skipped today.”

                “It’s my birthday,” Morgan reminds her. “One more? Please?”

                Lucina sighs and takes up the blade again.

 

* * *

 

                His children off to bathe and dress for dinner, Chrom stops by his offices again to get lectured by some of his council members on the inappropriateness of “taking most of a day off” as Exalt for something as silly as a birthday. There’s an unspoken _Emmeryn wouldn’t_ to it, but Chrom won’t have it. There’ll be plenty of time for that tomorrow, so for now he goes right back to his “day off” by going to visit Lissa once more.

                He does, after all, need to have a word with her about both the poem and divulging things to Morgan that he’d thought were to remain mum.

                He finds Lissa in her room, still with Sumia, and he sits in her drawing room while the two women bustle in and out of Lissa’s dressing room, and in and out from behind the dressing screens. Lon’qu is in the midst of passing through as Chrom arrives, a dark figure lurking silently around the edges of the room, clearly here to change but not wanting to get too close to his wife or her friend while they fuss over dresses and dinner attire.

                “What are you so afraid of?” Chrom asks him. He wonders if Lissa has discussed Owain with Lon’qu yet, but he doubts he’d get a word out of him on the subject either way.

                “Avoiding a cravat,” Lon’qu replies grimly, but despite Lissa’s cajoling, he escapes the room again without one.

                “Chroooom,” Lissa groans, “What do you want? We’re busy.”

                “I wanted to talk to you about Owain again,” Chrom says. “And Cynthia.”

                “What happened, Captain?” Sumia asks.

                Sumia pops her head out the side of the dressing screen, and then back in again with a yelp when she realizes she’s not wearing anything. She fumbles into an underdress rapidly, and Chrom chooses to stand with his back to the screen, just in case she happens to, oh, trip through the screen.

                “We got more news,” Chrom says.

                “What?” Lissa says. And then, hopefully: “Do we know where they are now?”

                “We don’t,” Chrom says. “But they sent us a _poem_ as a message.”

                He hears both women pause, and then Lissa says, a pitch higher than necessary: “WHAT?”

                “A poem,” Chrom repeats. “Do you want me to tell it to you?”

                “Obviously!” Lissa says.

                So Chrom repeats it, memorized to the word, leaving both women in another silence.

                “Is he NUTS?” Lissa says, finally. “What does that even MEAN? Why’s he talking about WOMBS?”

                “He’s probably nuts,” Chrom says. “Frederick is going to ride out to track him down. I’m really sorry about this, Lissa.”

                “What are _you_ sorry about?” she roars, and finally dressed she waddles over to stand in front of him. She’s a whole head shorter than him, even now as a grown woman, but she seems a whole lot taller when she waves a finger threateningly under his chin. “He’s up to trouble, and that’s no one’s fault but his own! Stressing out his poor, pregnant mum!”

                “I shouldn’t have given him responsibility he wasn’t ready for,” Chrom says, but Lissa won’t have it. 

                “Well, he’ll be mucking out stalls for the next few _years_ ,” she says. “See how he likes that instead of being some fancy duke!”

                “Should I go with Frederick?” Sumia pipes up. Chrom dares glance back, and he has to turn away again when he realizes Sumia is still barely dressed, fumbling into a bodice with her arms over her head.

                “No, Sumia, it’d be a conflict of interest,” Chrom says. “Unless they have a really good reason, they’re both going to be in trouble.”

                Sumia sighs, disappointed, but there’s nothing more to be said there. Sighing won’t bring her daughter back into their fold –– just Frederick’s intimidating might and the respect it commands. For every lost sheep, there is a Shepherd.

                “Well, I’m ready,” Lissa says. “When’s Frederick leaving?"

                “Soon, probably,” Chrom replies. “Dinner’s soon, and they’ll be missing it.”

                Lissa waddles away from him and goes to the balcony. Chrom follows her, idly watching the spring green of her skirt wobble in the wind, up against her skinny chicken legs. She’s almost comical, this gangly creature constantly on the verge of overbalancing from the weight of her belly. Lissa leans as far over the balcony as she dares, to where she can see the courtyard for the stables.

                “He’s there now!” And then, with a deep breath, Lissa shouts, “FREDERICK!”

                Chrom reaches the balcony just in time to see Frederick look up.

                “WAIT FOR ME!” she shouts.

                Frederick just waves a hand and then goes back to fussing over the stableboys’ work. 

                “Let’s go,” Lissa says. “Sumiaaaaa! I’ll meet you downstairs, okay? _Chrom, let’s go!_ ”

                So off they go, albeit at too slow of a pace to warrant that kind of insistence, as if he had been the one holding them up, but that’s how it always is. It takes them a full ten minutes to get downstairs and through the passages to the courtyard, but as the guards open the double-doors dutifully, Frederick and Cherche come into view. They’re in conversation, standing close, discussing something quite tersely with the stableboys and grooms still rushing to and fro with last-second preparations.

                “I’m surprised you’re still here,” Chrom calls out across the courtyard.

                Cherche looks his way first, and she nudges Frederick on the shoulder, and he turns to look as well.

                “Exalt,” Cherche says, pleasantly, but she’s always pleasant, even in the grimmest of situations. “Not a moment too soon; we were about to leave.”

                “Lord Chrom,” Frederick says. He seems to pause, and then he strides over to stand before them, tall and somehow more imposing than usual in a long, dark cloak. He kneels at their feet, and he reaches for their hands, which Chrom and Lissa both readily offer.

                Frederick looks up at them with such sincerity.

                “My lord, my lady,” he says, “I promise you… I will bring the boy home.”

                Chrom nods, curtly.

                “Well, leave some scolding for me, will you?” he says.

                “And for me!” Lissa pipes up, hotly.

                “But not too much,” Chrom adds. “Lissa might just kill him.”

                Lissa scoffs, but she pushes by Chrom to throw her arms around Frederick’s neck as he straightens up. He embraces her kindly. In earlier years, he might have just lifted her clear off her feet for a second, but she’s grown too much for that now.

                “I will bring back your son,” he says, and as he withdraws from her arms, he gently touches his fingers to her belly. “Before this one comes, I promise.”

                “You’d better,” Lissa says, and she leans around him to look at Cherche. “Make sure he doesn’t get all soft on Owain! Owain knows every trick to get around Frederick that _I_ know.”

                “I’ll mind him,” Cherche says, pleasantly. The horses behind them are finally ready, so she gives a curtsey — a sweet formality, given she has no official service to their household — and she waves her goodbye. “Come, darling, the sooner we leave, the sooner we can come home.”

                “Safe travels,” Chrom says.

                “Thank you, milord,” Frederick replies.

                And then, with Frederick’s hand at the small of Cherche’s back, they head back towards the stables.

                Chrom stands with Lissa for a moment, the two of them watching the evening light dying on the rooftop tiles. The sky is orange and birds are crowing overhead, and Chrom puts an arm around his little sister. She huffs and leans her head against his shoulder.

                “It’ll be okay, Lissa,” Chrom says.

                “I know,” she says, a little sadly. “But I’m going to worry for weeks, anyway.”

                “I know,” he replies. “Let’s put it off your mind with dinner, then.”

 

* * *

 

                Despite the numerous place settings along the long table, the finery of the silverware and dishes, and the guests dressed finely, the food is, at best, simple. Morgan isn’t one for roasted peacocks or whole pigs turned on a spit –– he chooses bear stew with potatoes and carrots, thickened with butter and served with flaky bread rolls. Lissa almost laughs when it is set before her.

                “Oh,” she says. “I should have guessed."

                Sumia laughs, too.

                “This takes us back to the war campaign, doesn’t it?” Sumia says, fondly. “What a choice, Morgan!”

                “I like it,” Morgan says.

                Morgan is in entirely different spirits at dinner; the surliness is completely gone, but so is the lighthearted joy from the courtyard sparring session. Instead, Morgan is eerily calm, and quiet, as if his mind is somewhere else entirely. He listens to their birthday songs politely, smiles a little when someone tells a joke, but he seems far away.

                Chrom would be lying if he said he wasn’t used to this, in some way. At times, his children could be gripped by the same indecipherable moodiness that their mother had felt in the later years. It’s a proclivity towards sitting in windows and sighing out at the horizon, or a tendency to ponder all the great mysteries of life and how they, personally, could fit into the world’s fate. 

                Chrom does all those things too, of course, but he’s also more likely to remedy those moods with a hard ride through the fields, sword in-hand, or some good, fierce sulking and feeling sorry for himself. His kids don’t _sulk_. They _brood_ , dark and mysterious. That’s fine by Chrom –– he gets an odd little catharsis doing it his way, and if they don’t, that’s fine. Fine, fine, fine.

                But it is a whole lot like their mother, and she was a schemer. Her brooding always tied in with some plan, and they were often plans she kept close to her chest. Chrom didn’t mind that either, as his trust in her felt as unbreakable as his love for her. Still, though, it makes him wonder sometimes what his mysterious little children are thinking. 

                Morgan glances his way, so Chrom smiles.

                “Morgan,” Chrom says, fondly. “What are you going to do with your fifteenth year?”

                “Sixteenth,” Morgan says. “I’m fifteen because I’ve already lived fifteen years.”

                “You know what I mean, don’t be so pedantic,” Chrom laughs. “What are you going to do with your _six_ teenth year?”

                “I’m going to master all types of magic up to a C-level,” Morgan says. “And I’m going to read at least a hundred books. That’s two a week, if I take two weeks’ vacation.”

                There’s some laughter around the table between the adults. Most of Morgan and Lucina’s friends are off around the world right now, so the two are easily amongst the youngest at the table. Lucina doesn’t seem to mind terribly, but Morgan seems a little cowed by the adults laughing.

                “Where are you going to vacation, Morgan?” Sumia asks, fondly. “You’re always welcome to visit us at our manor, you know, even if Cynthia isn’t back yet. That might be a nice vacation.”

                “Maybe,” Morgan says. “I was thinking I’d go on an adventure, someplace far.”

                “Well, I’m sure Cynthia would happily go with you when she’s back,” Sumia says with a smile.

                Morgan pauses, and then he asks: “Do you really think they eloped?”

                Chrom nudges a chunk of fat across the bottom of his bowl with his fork, his eyes low but his ears peeled.

                “Oh, Cynthia and Owain?” Sumia replies, and then she laughs, folding her hands in her lap and her eyes low. Her husband chuckles, too.

                “They might’ve,” Reiner says. “The two of them are thick as thieves. But you know, Morgan, I don’t think they’d do it without you there.”

                Chrom doesn’t know Reiner terribly well yet — the courtship between him and Sumia had been whirlwind fast –– but he appreciates the comment. 

                “I don’t think so either,” Morgan agrees.

                “What do you figure they’re up to, then?” Reiner asks. 

                Morgan pauses, and Chrom watches his son ruminate on an answer, his expression furrowed the same way it might if he were pondering a move across a chess board.

                “I can’t say,” he says. And then, firmer: “But I trust them, no matter what they’re doing.”

                Chrom watches Sumia and Reiner exchange a look, and Chrom decides this topic has worn on their hearts enough for one day. He reaches across the table to place a hand over Morgan’s.

                “Why don’t we talk about happier matters?” Chrom offers. He gestures at Lon’qu, then, with a laugh on his voice. “I hear Uncle Lon’qu got you something very cool for your birthday…”

                “Really?” Morgan says, instantly curious.

                Tonight, they should just make merry. 

                And merry they make, especially when the cake comes out: a four-tiered confection with rosy icing and spun-sugar leaves, real flower petals laid on the top and speared with fifteen candles, all lit. A cheer goes up amongst the table as it is laid before Morgan, and the candlelight reflects in his wide eyes like a cluster of stars. They sing out a chorus of happy birthday once more, so loudly their voices must be echoing throughout the halls of the castle, and Chrom feels a great joy swell in his heart when he sees Lucina smiling, too, and Ryn shrieking and clapping her hands in her own little seat.

                Morgan stands just to be level with the top of his cake, and he draws a deep breath in.

                “Wait!” Lucina says, and Morgan pauses. “You have to wish for something.”

                Chrom watches his children exchange a smile, and Morgan seems even more pensieve for a moment, and then his smile grows more confident.

                “Here it goes, then,” Morgan says, and he takes that deep breath and blows out all the candles, all in one go.

                And, as if Morgan had wished for a happier birthday, the rest of the evening is raucous with laughter, and despite all the strangeness earlier, Chrom feels very satisfied to have such a dear family.

 

* * *

 

                Chrom finds himself ending the night sitting at the end of his bed, perfectly alone save for the portrait across from him. He kicks off his boots and reaches down to pull off his socks, all while looking at his wife’s face. He laughs to himself, because sometimes he likes to think that her tense expression is some sort of judgement of the smell of his feet, or as is the case tonight, looking at the spot where he scraped his knees on the cobblestones.

                "You know," he says aloud, mostly to her. "How did we raise such perfect children? They're both smarter than us, especially me. They're stronger than us — I can't wait for Lucina to get cocky so I finally stand a chance at getting her off-guard again."

                She doesn't reply, but he hardly expects her to even draw breath, let alone speak. It's stopped bothering him — now it's just a little comfort to think she might hear him from wherever she is.

                "I think if we could raise such wonderful children in such difficult circumstances, what we could do here should be just as great," he says. "You probably think strife tempered Lucina and Morgan, though, don’t you? But I think Ryn will be strong, too. Maybe just a different kind of strong."

                He flings his socks across the room and crawls across his bed, stretching out in the big empty space. His outspread arms don’t touch either side of the bed no matter how far he tries to stretch his reach. 

                "I hope she takes after you," Chrom says. "I hope you get to meet her again. She’s gotten so big, and she’s talking a bit now… nothing even close to grammatically correct sentences yet, but she’ll get there. I just don’t want you to miss too many words.”

                He lets out a long, satisfied hum.

                “We might go visit the Mila Tree again, maybe. I still have to really think about it, because it means more time away from Ryn, but once Morgan and Lucina pushed the issue, I just started thinking about how much I wanted it, too. Maybe I can plead your case with Tiki again.”

                He laughs to himself, short and quiet.

                Silence lingers for a second, and then he says:

                “I want to see you again.”

                "Chrom?"

                Her portrait seems to smiles at him, and her voice is low and friendly, the same way she would sometimes wake him in the morning.

                "Yeah?" he replies.

                "Soon," she says.

                He lifts his head at that, to peer at the portrait, but her sad eyes just stare back at him, and her mouth remains fixed in that uneasy curve. No, paintings don’t talk. He lays his head back down to drift off to sleep.

                But for a moment there, he feels that somewhere, somehow, she’s out there.

 


	3. Interlude: Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter, but not the one Chrom thought it was.

.

 

 

A letter with the green seal of Lord Owain’s dukedom, delivered to Frederick from Nowi. The letter seems practiced, with nothing scratched out or corrected, and the handwriting is neat and uniform. It reads:

 

_Dear Frederick,_

_If my husband were a modest farmer or even just a patient man, I would write to him immediately, but you and I both know that he is liable to send armies marching to retrieve me. I don't know what the political landscape looks like from the throne, but on the ground in Plegia, things are too unstable to risk something like that. Please read this letter and tell him what you feel is best for him to know, or at least what will cause the least amount of upset. If nothing else, let him know how much I miss him and our children._

_I'm told I've been gone for the better part of four hundred days. Chances are you know better of what has happened after Grima's fall than I do, so I will leave that matter in your good hands. For me, it has been some weeks since I woke up. I wrote a first letter from the village beneath the Mila tree, but with no means to prove my identity, there was no chance in the world that it would reach Ylisstol with any speed or privacy, so I left it there. My circumstances have changed since then, and so I am left to explain where I have been. In précis:_

_Upon my new awakening, Tiki implored me to wait at the Tree for my husband to come looking, but I couldn't. Waiting could be months or even years, and being realistic, I'm not about to wait that long. I have children at home who wouldn't understand why a woman capable of felling a dragon would sit around and wait, so I left with just a shortsword, two tomes, the clothes on my back, some meager supplies and some coin. It wasn’t much to carry but it did me fine. Better than your packs, certainly!_

_I've spent the past few weeks making my way back to Ylisse. It hasn't been easy; the lords of central Valm have been feuding intensely with the desperate remainders of Walhart's conquest, which I had known from even before we took up war against Plegia –– I won’t waste paper on specifics. A particular Lord Tylar made it very difficult to reach the coast. After a few days of dodging conflict and patrols, Tylar's knights managed to pick me up where I was making camp, having been directed there by some villagers who had seen me passing through. Tylar took a great interest in having found an armed foreigner with a Plegian-Ylissean hybrid accent and no convincing story to speak of, and he believed me to be some sort of spy. I confess I fell upon the old excuse of having no memory, but it wasn't convincing this time on account that it simply wasn't true, as I have more memory now than I have in any other point in my life. Fortunately being presumed dead did a great deal to obscure my identity, but in the interest of avoiding becoming some of sort political hostage if they found out, I slipped off at first opportunity and pressed on._

_The trek between Tylar's territory and the border was about eighty miles, mostly over rolling hills that made it feel twice that distance. I crossed paths with several Chon'sin outposts on the road, and I hope Say'ri would understand my wariness in staying clear of them. If I had been escorted to her, I would have had better accommodations and quite a bit more comfort in my life, as well as some contact with my husband, but home called more. I owe you a great deal, Frederick, for so many hours of training. Without that, I might have given up on a hillside somewhere in Chon'sin country and waited to be eaten by wild animals. Instead, I did the eating!_

_And then, perhaps two miles from the northern ports of Fort Steiger, I had my first encounter with Plegian refugees; you and I both know downtrodden people can hardly be blamed for their wariness of outsiders, but I needed supplies and I was driven off of three encampments before even exchanging even a word. The first encampment that did not ward me off with riders and warnings was one hundred and fifty people strong, mostly older and hardier folk with more in the way of resources. I did trade with them, and bartered passage. I tried not to linger long, and kept to myself on that grueling passenger ship ride to continental Plegia and Ylisse. It seems a year after the incident at the Dragon's Table there are still plenty of believers, and though I know  very few would recognize me, I felt a fear for what would happen if someone did._

_As you know, under the terms of Ylisse and Plegia's armistice after Emmeryn's death, Plegians are not permitted a great deal of aid. The coffers that had been open to us as victors were certainly never shared with their people. The people are starving, Frederick, and no one I encountered could even tell me who sits on the throne of Plegia now, even a year after Validar's death. Seeing as we had deposed of the last two, I considered that we ought to just install the next ourselves, but I doubt that would do much for the people. If there's anything I've learned in the past few weeks, it is that our politics fall very short once leaving Ylisse's borders, and Ylisse does not even have the scars of the past few years. We've done them a great injustice by leaving them to flounder while we’ve given up comparatively little._

_Even so, I am not sure we can do much to improve their situation. What few conversations I have found myself in have always centered on the doomed state of Plegia, as well as the burgeoning Valmese civil wars that have cropped up in Walhart's wake. I suppose it is difficult to imagine rebuilding when you have little more than black bread and gruel to subsist on; the Plegian people are starving when they're not killing each other. Some are saying there is no more than a hundred thousand Plegians left to the land after Grima, and even a year later, there are still funeral pyres burning, even without bodies. I feel a great bit of culpability for that but guilt won't change anything._

_A week ago, I arrived on the continent to find it not unlike it had been spoken to be, with one general difference: on that happy day, about twenty miles east of the Midmire, I encountered Nowi -- or, rather, she encountered me with the most spine-rattling hug I've ever received. You can imagine my delight when she told me that "the Cabal" was close to Plegia Castle, and that she was working as messenger between them and Ylisstol. I was so relieved to see a familiar face! She fetched two from their ranks to meet me and all has been well since. I'm writing now with my nephew's stationary, from our camp in the mountains. I'm in good spirits, and the children are perhaps the best company one could ask for when going on a little adventure like this one._

_For now, the four of us have left the company well-supplied and are continuing South. Why South, when the quickest path home would carry us East? I am going to see the house I grew up in before we make for home, which I hope my husband will forgive me for. If all goes well with the last leg of the journey, I'll be home in a some weeks, which feels much too long but can't be helped just yet._

_I have so much to say about my return but the rest will have to wait until I arrive home. I don't know that Nowi will be able to find us again, so don’t bother writing back._

_Love,_

_"Stranger"_

_P.S. Please don’t be cross, Fredericson._


	4. Fidelity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frederick's very strange day is a whole lot worse, but not for any reason he would expect. He's spent well over two decades trying to be the perfect knight to his lord –– it's difficult to fall gracefully, especially when so much of the situation is beyond his control.
> 
> But duty is duty, regardless of circumstances; when Frederick obtains a letter from a stranger that suggests his lord's wife has returned and spirited Owain and Cynthia off on an adventure, he sets out with Cherche to retrieve the children and eliminate the impostor before she can cause much damage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Oh my god! I write such painfully long chapters! I should write half-chapters just to get them up more often! I got sick of rereading this and rewriting this!
> 
> Here's Frederick. Hopefully this shifting-viewpoints things worked; I never liked it much elsewhere, but I'm having fun playing with scenes from other characters' perspectives and filling in gaps.

.

 

 

 

 

 

                The day had started as it usually did: before dawn, with the new recruits in neat rows in the grass, all drenched with sweat before the sun could even rise in the sky, their bellies trembling trying to hold a push-up. In some months, with some patience and hard work, they would be firm like iron. Their repetitions had been good, their enthusiasm commendable –– they were settling into the early schedule well, with fewer yawns than ever.  

                Frederick had felt a good bit of pride that morning, enough to nearly bring tears to the corners of his eyes, remembering the fierce camaraderie of being a new recruit amongst his peers, all of them bright and bursting with promise. Frederick never failed to end a morning training session without being on the cusp of being overwhelmed by those feelings again. (Cherche always laughed at that.) 

                In light of this good morning, Frederick hadn't expected this day to go downhill so fast from there.

                Breakfast had followed, and to be fair, it hadn't been terrible. The news that young Lord Owain and Cynthia had deserted the Cabal was vexing, of course, but it wasn't unusual for Frederick to recieve correspondences from the numerous regiments stationed both around Ylisse and beyond its borders. While he has no business in commanding them or dictating their actions or whereabouts, his primary concern (and the purposes of the letters) is updates on the status of the many young recruits. Until the recruits are granted permanent positions within their regiments, they still fall under his responsibility, and so he gets updates when their performance is so poor that some retraining is warranted. 

                A complete desertion, though? That is strange.

                He might have dimissed Owain’s desertion as the fruits of Lissa's chronic laziness and lackadaisical approach to duty, but he knows better than to think any child of hers could also be so completely inconsiderate, either. And Cynthia –– she could dream her way off a cliff, nose alternately buried in a book or taking her in pursuit of adventure, but she always seemed to be such a worrier when it came to hurting others.

                Why would they go?

                He’d spent the rest of the morning writing correspondence with several captains stationed across Ylisse, as well as one particularly long and inquisitive letter to Lord Owain's second-in-command. When that was finished, he'd marched up to the council chamber to meet with the Exalt's councilmembers, a collection of wizened old men and women with greying hair and fading patience. 

                Generally he wouldn't do such a thing -- his duties have long been disregarded as Lord Chrom's personal knight at best and nanny at worst, and he is not supposed to act in Chrom's stead -- but it is his Lord's son's birthday, and Lord Chrom had wanted the day off.

                These things always put Frederick in a difficult position, but he does whatever he can to ease the burdens on his Lord’s shoulders. This would have been passable before Chrom took the title of Exalt, but now the council frowns on such a thing. 

                Almost all of them are in a quiet fury when Frederick steps in alone.

                “Sir Frederick,” the lead councillor says. He is Councillor Edmund, and Frederick knows him well –– he was a contemporary of his father’s, once, but Frederick has never known whether they got along at all. Edmund looks down at him imperiously: “Would you mind reminding the court what your duties are?”

                Frederick knows this is a trap, but he rattles them off anyway: “Your Eminence, I am the Exalt Chrom’s personal knight, a title which I have honourably held since his birth. My duties are in his service, and by extension the service of the realm. And, of course, these days I am also responsible for the training of new recruits.”

                 “I see,” Edmund says. “Is that all?”

                “Well, Your Eminence, if I may be so bold,” Frederick says, with just a touch of cheek, “I do make a superb cup of tea.”

                The council does not look amused.

                 “And where, precisely, is the Exalt you serve?”

                "I recall him informing you that he would not be sitting today," Frederick says.

                 "Nonsense!" an old councilor growls, to which Frederick has no comment.

                 “Sir Frederick,” Councillor Edmund starts again. “The council did not lead the halidom in his stead for five years only to be told the Exalt intends to spend his time gallivanting around the castle like a child.”

                 True enough in some regards, and Frederick very nearly flinches for his lord’s honour, but he knows his place in this court too well to grow defensive.

                “With all due respect, it is his son’s birthday,” Frederick says. “The Exalt––“

                 “Do you think Plegia cares for his son’s birthday?” Another councillor interrupts –– Councillor Rosalind. She peers at Frederick over the tops of her glasses. “After all, a declaration has yet to be made on its fate, as well as the myriad of other issues he has yet to fully address.”

                 “Not all is lost; I have paperwork from him this morning," Frederick says, depositing said paperwork on the table before Chrom's empty chair. “Not the declarations on Plegia you so desire, unfortunately, but many other affairs have already been addressed. If you have some pressing need of him today, perhaps he can spare a few moments from his only son." 

                Grumbles from around the tables are in no short supply.

                “The council is beginning to think your service to him is misplaced," Councillor Edmund says. "Shouldn't you be concerning yourself more with the newest recruits, who will be needed if the proposal to annex Plegia proceeds?”

                Frederick chooses to ignore the first comment, though it sends a shiver down his spine that he doesn’t like at all. He straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin. _Restraint, Frederick._

                “If that is what Exalt Chrom decrees, then I will adjust my focuses accordingly,” Frederick says. 

                By the expression on her face alone, Councillor Rosalind won’t have it. Frederick finds himself staring down a veritable authoritarian, so he lowers his eyes. From the stern looks of the eleven other councillors, Frederick is sure they won’t have it either.

                Councillor Rosalind reaches to take the papers from Chrom’s place at the table, and she leafs through them.

                “There are plenty of other people to wipe the Exalt's nose for him and fuss over the straightness of his clothes; he has long outgrown boyhood, Sir Frederick, and Exalt Chrom must learn to manage his own affairs. The council will not wait forever for this decision.”

                Frederick nods dutifully, though he feels a sinking feeling in his gut. He has seen his lord in many forms over the years: troublemaking but earnest child, petulant teenager, brash young man, newlywed and new father, seasoned warfarer and worldbeater. This Exalt he calls his lord now is the sum of all those parts, in a way, but there are still new ways of being: mourning widower, doting father, Exalt of his halidom. Whereas before his roles had been successive, now they pile up on his lord's shoulders all at once. 

                There's so much he wants to do for his lord as a trusted friend, but what he can do for an Exalt is dwindling.

                Councilor Edmund sighs when Frederick lapses into this silence, and he says: "You've done commendable work guiding Chrom to being the man he is today, and his swordsmanship, at least, is the finest in the realm. But Councilor Rosalind is right; tomorrow, when the Exalt is done with this birthday, we will discuss shifting your services to Prince Morgan instead, and we will assign a new aide to the Exalt. One who can keep him focused on politics!”

                Frederick feels his stomach bottom out somewhere in his pelvis.

                This isn’t how he expected today to go at all.

                But despite the axe coming for his neck, he nods. The council has nothing more to say to him, and so he excuses himself immediately.

                He promptly goes down to the training grounds, where he has to sit in a closet in the barracks to compose himself before the noon training session. He's nearly composed when the door opens, and he finds himself looking up at his wife, who fixes him with a vaguely amused look. If he’s being honest, it’s not the first time she’s found him here. He’s sat in that closet numerous times, polishing a riding bit or mending the fingers of an old glove, just to distract and busy his mind.

                This time, though, it’s nothing. He’s just staring forlornly at the floor.

                "Darling, are you thinking about the sanctity of brotherhood again?" she asks him, gently.

                Frederick looks up at her, and her amused expression vanishes in an instant. She slips into the closet with him and closes the door behind her. It's a tight fit, but she perches on his knees with her hands on his cheeks.

                “Whatever is the matter?” she says.

                "The council thinks my duties to Chrom are no longer necessary," he admits.

                She fixes him with a long, hard look, but he would never joke about something like this. 

                "And what does Chrom say about this?" Cherche asks, concerned.

                "They've only told me," Frederick says. “He’ll be dodging court today, so I suspect he won’t know until tomorrow.”

                Cherche hums under her breath, and she strokes his cheeks and leans her face close to his. 

                “You know Chrom would never permit that without a fight," she says, “but even if it happened, it would not mean you could no longer serve him as a friend, Frederick."

                Even if she means well, Frederick wonders, for an instant, he’s even doing his duty well enough anymore. Frederick has sworn his life to the protection of this man who represents the well-being of the realm, but scarcely is there a day where he doesn't catch Chrom wondering about yet another ride out to the fields, and his candor with his children is always markedly different from the sigh on his breath when he is alone. 

                Even in peacetime, Frederick finds _himself_ juggling more than ever himself: a wife, a fickle child, the recruits, his Lord’s children, the household––

                “Frederick?” Cherche says, quietly.

                “I know,” he sighs. “I must do my best. But we will need to discuss this later –– we have recruits to attend to.”

* * *

                The training session goes well, though with the summer heat at its mid-day worst, Frederick feels queasier than ever by time it’s over. His collar is drenched and sticking to the back of his neck, and he’s quite sure his tie has never felt so oppressive, but despite his wife’s attempts to coax him to their quarters for lunch, he is doggedly determined to keep busy. Lord Chrom will be back from the market with Morgan soon, and he’d like to bring up his duties before the council will, so if he can finish a few more letters before mid-afternoon, then––

                “Sir Frederick,” an aide says, popping her head out of the throneroom door. “There’s a personal messenger here for the Exalt. Would you like to attend to her?”

                “Of course,” Frederick says, immediately curious. There’s no chance there could be more bad news, he supposes, the odds would be terribly small.

                He follows the aide into the throne room and his eyes fall on a very familiar messenger. There’s Nowi, looking at the ceiling and utterly transfixed by whatever she’s staring at. She’s dressed in her usual green scales and pink sashes, and as usual, Frederick feels inclined to wrap her up in a blanket, particularly in court. He always has to remind himself that she is not just some skinny half-naked child –– she is a manakete, and they have such poor patience for the fashions of man. 

                Perhaps they could get her a little uniform, he thinks, one more suited for a messenger for Ylisse. A little blue pleated dress with a matching cape, with gold buttons stamped with the mark of Naga. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

                "Nowi," Frederick says, pleasantly. "Looking for Chrom, are you?”

                Nowi almost startles, and she looks at him with big, round eyes.

                “Frederick!” she exclaims. “You’re here!”

                “That I am,” he says. “You have a personal message, I hear.”

                Nowi skitters up to him, boots squeaking on the floor.

                “Two of ‘em!" she says. “One I’ve gotta say out loud, but…”

                She fishes around in her satchel, and Frederick watches the contents churn around her scrambling hands. Nestled around her dragonstone are a great number of things: colourful stones, foreign coins, an odd length of silver chain, bits of fur and scrap fabrics, and what looks like a human finger bone. After a moment of rustling she produces a letter in surprisingly good condition, and she offers it to him with the seal up.

                “I knew I didn’t lose it over the river,” she says, triumphantly.

                The seal is green, and stamped with Owain's marker. Frederick feels a surge of relief.

                “Owain! What a relief. Should I bring this to Chrom or Lissa?” he asks, taking it. Thank god the boy has some of his mother's commitment to family, and his father's common sense. 

                Nowi blinks at him, and then laughs.

                “No, silly," she says. "It's for you! She said to give it to you.”

                "Really?" Frederick raises his eyebrows at her, and then looks down at the letter.

                "She said to give it to you _specifically_ ," Nowi says. And then she repeats, with a cloying, mischievous smile: " _She._ "

                “Cynthia, yes,” Frederick says.

                Nowi just snickers, which doesn’t sit well with him and his eternal paranoia, but he has no concern for that right now. Frederick opens it and sets to reading it.

_Dear Frederick, if my husband were a modest farmer or even just a patient man, I would write to him immediately, but you and I both know that he is liable to send armies marching to retrieve me…_

                With that letter, his day gets a great deal more complicated.

                He has to read it three times before it really sinks in. His stomach has scarcely climbed back up from his gut since this morning, and now it plummets even further. He looks down at Nowi, who beams up at him like she's in on the greatest secret in the world, and for once, Frederick thinks she might be right. 

                "Nowi," he says, low on his throat. "Is this from Ada?"

                Nowi nods empathetically.

                "She said I'm not allowed to talk to anyone about it, even you, so," she says, and she clasps both hands over her mouth in gesture. _Silence._ She leans up against him, up on the balls of her feet, in order to peer over his wrist and see the letter. “What does it say? She didn't read it to me."

                "It says a great many things," Frederick says, somewhat stupefied. He folds the letter just so he doesn’t have to look at it, hiding it from her view. “Nowi, if this is a joke, you _must_ tell me now."

                Nowi seems a little put-off at that. She folds her arms. His mind is running far too fast to care much for her feelings: _gods,_ he thinks, _this is some ploy against Chrom by a cunning fraud. It must be. The only reason to believe it is true is Nowi’s word, and Nowi…_

                Well, Nowi will believe anything.

                He feels like his world is spinning, but Chrom walks into the throne room at that very moment, and all he can do is swallow his words and hold the damning letter at his side, thinking of what he could possibly say. Nowi bursts with cheer, climbing into Chrom’s arms, and Frederick just buries his upset under his thick, practiced professionalism. He must.

 _Tell him what you will,_ the letter had said, but Frederick knows very much that he refuses to risk upsetting his lord — not until he's gotten to the bottom of it, and discovered the truth.

                If the council thinks his service is no longer necessary, then this may have to be his final act in his Lord’s service.

                He’ll just have to go after Owain and Cynthia himself, and see who this “Stranger” is.

* * *

                 Frederick takes Nowi to the kitchens, prying nothing of use out of her but a list of her favourite meats and what she would like to eat, and so he leaves her in the care of the kitchen staff. Then he walks back to his quarters with a numbness in his chest, but a surprisingly firm resolve. It only takes two flights of stairs and several long corridors to settle into a new determination, one where he finds himself growing angry.

                Who would dare impersonate his lord’s late wife? 

                And worse, if there’s even the slightest chance that it really is her, then what in the world would she be playing at, not coming home? What could she possibly have to do that’s more important than coming home to her family, to her husband? Her return would put an ease back into Chrom’s heart that Frederick could not accomplish with even a thousand years of labours in duty. She would know that.

                And as cruel as it is, he thinks sometimes that he doesn't miss her — not in a callous way (though it would certainly sound that way if he spoke it aloud) but in a _reverential_ way. Her sacrifice had represented a duty and dedication he respected above all else. To wish for her return would feel somewhat misplaced, somewhat selfish in light of their lives after Grima, and the lives of those in the millennia to come. 

                It is doubly insulting, then, to imagine some stranger out there wearing his lady’s identity, seeking some sort of fame or fortune or notoriety. Some stranger taking Ada’s nephew and allies for fools, and trying to take him for a fool.

                No, Sir Frederick the Wary does not believe she’s back. Not for an instant.

                He arrives at the door to his quarters with squared shoulders and a mental readiness. It’s been four-hundred-or-so days since he was last on a dedicated mission, in full armor and with a sword in-hand, and if this is going to be his last under Chrom’s service, he will approach it with dignity and resolve.

                He opens the door to see his wife sitting on the couch.

                “Have you spoken to Chrom yet, darling?” Cherche says. She doesn't even look up. She's busy mending the hem of a dress, nimble fingers weaving a needle in and out with little flashes of silver. 

                Frederick looks at the top of her head and feels softened by her name for him, but he doesn't respond in kind. When his looming presence fails to offer any sort of verbal response, she looks up, needle poised mid-stitch, long red thread dangling. She sees the letter dangling between his fingertips, and she puts her needle through the fabric as a placeholder. 

                “I hope that’s not your dismissal already," Cherche says. 

                “No, milady, it is a letter from a ghost,” Frederick replies. 

                He offers her the letter, more blithely than Nowi had for him, but certainly with no more preamble. Cherche unfolds it and reads the first few lines, and then she glances down to the signature line. She looks up at him, alarmed.

                "Ada?" she says. Her tone is passive, but hopeful.

                "Read it all," Frederick says.

                So she does, with a tentatively hopeful expression that slowly grows neutral, and then, finally, furrowed.

                "I don't know what to make of this," Cherche says. "If it was delivered by Nowi..."

                “We’ll get to Nowi in a moment," Frederick says, "does it _sound_ like her?"

                “It could, but it wouldn't be the first letter we've gotten from an impostor," Cherche muses. That’s true — there have been many frauds attempting to cash in on Ylissean gold, women dyeing their hair and feigning amnesia in some bid to become the Exalt’s wife. Cherche has tracked down many an impostor herself, even. “It _could_ sound like her.”

                "It _could_ sound like her," Frederick agrees. "But I have never read her personal writing at length like that, and it is vague. Not even a signature or proper name, likely avoid an easy tell.”

                Cherche nods.

                “There is something funny about it,” she says. “Why write to you? Why not write to Chrom?"

                "That was my first concern," Frderick says. “It was not unusual for her to confide in me when she was looking to protect Chrom... But what would she need to protect him from?"

                "She cares that armies do not march, obviously,” Cherche says. “She may want to imagine the attention but have no intention of ever being found. A story to tell, perhaps. Nowi won’t tell you anything?"

                "She insists it is Ada in the flesh," Frederick says. "She has no other proof than her word.”

                "Nowi could be tricked," Cherche says. "She is sweet, but naive."

                "She is a manakete, however," Frederick replies. "Surely she would know Ada's scent, or use some sense we are not privy to?”

                "Minerva would," Cherche replies. "I do not think its a stretch to think Nowi would. But truthfully, Nowi could be bought easily. She’s easily satisfied.”

                Frederick nods, and they both consider it for a moment. Then Frederick taps the page, lower. 

                "What of Owain and Cynthia, then? We know they abandoned their post a week ago, but now it seems they left to follow this ‘Stranger.’ Could they have been fooled?"

                "Cynthia, absolutely," Cherche says. "Owain... doubtful. But he is family, too; does he miss Ada so much that he wouldn't think clearly?"

                “I don’t know. Both are easily tempted by tall tales and adventure," Frederick says. "The writer even reminds us of that in the letter."

                "So whoever she is," Cherche says, "she knows just enough of our people to suggest familiarity, but says nothing to prove it.” She pauses, and then adds: “They could be hostages.”

                Fear plucks at the corners of his resolve when she says that, but he shakes his head. It’s easy to consider the worst, but he thinks too highly of his own training regimes to think that Cynthia and Owain could be so single-handedly taken by anyone.

                “It’s difficult to dispute any of this,” Frederick agrees, “but it says nothing conclusive either.”

                Cherche looks at him straight, her expression unusually somber. She says, "Frederick, if this is a trap, would she not write to Chrom directly? He would flee to her in a heartbeat, without even thinking, but _you_ would doubt her. You _already_ do.”

                “Chrom wouldn’t even think,” Frederick agrees. “I wouldn’t have a hope of stopping him, because he would trust Owain.”

                "She could inform you first because you are known to be wary," Cherche says. She taps her finger against her lower lip, pensieve. "She may predict that you will be most suspicious, and want to set foundation with you first."

                "But then she would still be left with convincing Chrom," he says. "How would she convince him in person?"

                "He could be blinded by hope. That is why we hid the other impostors best we could, isn’t it?”

                Frederick sighs. He looks at his wife and wishes she could just solve all of his problems as easily as she cured his desire for a wife and family, but alas, there is no magic solution 

                "I do not want to think that might be true," Frederick says, finally, "but he is a man of very strong conviction. It would be difficult to convince him otherwise if she could fool Nowi, Owain and Cynthia. But I can't imagine she could keep up the ruse long, unless… well, unless we’re dealing with a sorceress. Allowing him to meet any impostor could be tragic, if that is the case.”

                Frederick shakes his head.

                Cherche reaches to put a hand on his knee.

                “Do you intend to tell Chrom?” she asks.

                Frederick feels deeply troubled at this question.

                "Sometimes our service demands our silence,” Frederick replies. “If this is to be the end of my service to him, then it will be protecting his heart from another blow, and bringing home the children.”

                Cherche sits a little straighter. 

                “You intend to find her and the children?” she asks, but she knows the answer. 

                Frederick nods.

                “The two of us,” Cherche says, and he feels somewhat relief at that. “We will take Nowi and find the Stranger, and handle her accordingly. We will bring home Owain and Cynthia, and we will make the best of this bitter situation." 

                Cherche sits a little closer, shifting in her seat.

                “It will be good to stretch our wings again,” she says, “even if it’s not the most promising of missions.”

                He agrees wholeheartedly, or at least, he wishes he could, but something else nags at him. He looks at her long and careful, and she meets his eyes unflinching, and he says it before she can: “We won’t see our son for another few weeks.”

                She looks away then, and she breathes a long, disappointed sigh, but then she curls her hand around his. Her fingers are calloused and strong, her grip firm. And then, quick as her sigh, she pats him on the hand and pushes herself to her feet.

                “He’ll come around,” she says. “Under all those duties, he’s still a boy. He’ll gripe and moan while we’re here, but give him a few weeks in the castle without us and he’ll be waiting by the door when we get back.” 

                Frederick smiles for what feels like the first time that day.

* * *

                 Arrangements must be made with Nowi, whether she wants to talk or not –– she’ll lead them to the Stranger in the morning.

                “So Freddy!” Nowi says, when he comes down to the kitchen, mouth full of ham. He watches it roll between her cheeks when she talks. “When do I get to see my room? She promised the biggest bed in the castle, you know! And I’m pretty big when I’m shifted, you know.”

                Frederick sighs.

                "You’ll get your bed soon,” Frederick says, low and serious. He takes the letter from the breast pocket of his vest and holds it up for her to see. ”I need you to lead me back to the woman who wrote this."

                Nowi watches him with very round eyes, not at all uncomfortable with how far she must crane her neck in order to look up at him. Frederick in turn looks down at her sternly, his eyebrows frowned and his mouth in a hard line. 

                "Waaaait a minute," Nowi says, and she narrows her eyes. "What do you mean, _the woman who wrote this_? What are you saying?"

                "Nowi," Frederick says, even-toned. "I have not seen this woman with my own eyes, nor spoken to her."

                Nowi folds her arms petulantly, and she stands up, her heels dug into the ground. 

                “So you think she's a fake?"

                "It is possible," Frederick says.

                "Do ya think I'm _stupid_?" Nowi says.

                Frederick is sure there are a multitude of answers to that question: No, he doesn’t think she’s stupid, but she does perhaps behave in a way that would lead rude people to think of her that way. No, he doesn’t think she’s stupid, but she doesn’t seem the slightest bit surprised about “Ada” being alive, nor concerned about telling them all the good news. No, he doesn’t think she’s stupid, but he thinks she is easily taken advantage of, and that she almost certainly has been now –– that’s not her fault, she can’t help being naive, physiologically tuned to be unconcerned about the fleeting lives of humans.

                “No, I don’t think you’re stupid,” he says, patient but firm. “But understand, Nowi, you have given me no proof that this letter comes from Ada at all. The world believes her to be dead, and Lord Chrom would be beside himself if he knew you had kept proof from him… but you’ve offered nothing.”

                Nowi sticks out her bottom lip.

                “She said that in court, a letter with an official seal is supposed to be taken as if that person is in the room! Are you saying that’s not true?”

                Frederick sighs.

                “Yes, Nowi,” he says. “That is the convention of our court –– you know that –– but this is Owain’s seal, not Ada’s.”

                “Well, how’s Ada supposed to have her seal with her? Did she pop outta the flowers with a seal in her pocket just so she could write a letter to you, you big dummy?” Nowi argues.

                Point.

                “Look,” Frederick says. “A messenger of the court you may be, but this matter is very grave, little lady. As much as you are trusted, I do not trust this Stranger.”

                Nowi curls her lip at him, a tiny, soundless snarl that bears pointed teeth.

                “You’re trying to trick me,” she says. 

                “Pardon me?”

                “You are,” she says. “You’re trying to make me think I’m wrong, but I’m not. I’m _right._ She’s alive, and she’s with Cynthia and Owain and they’re going on an adventure.”

                Frederick looks down at this tiny manakete girl, at the blob of mustard on her cheek and the burgeoning tantrum on her countenance. He reaches a hand to her but she pushes away from him, stomping.

                “Nowi,” he says, gently as he can, but he’s cross, too. “See reason. You must understand my suspicions; they are not a reflection of _your_ character. Come –– why don’t I show you to your room? It has a marvellous bed, and––“

                “Now I’m not taking you to her,” Nowi announces. She pushes by him and keeps stomping off, out of the kitchens and down the hall. He follows tensely. 

                Gods give him strength.

                “Nowi, please,” he says. “You must.”

                “Nope!” she says. “I don’t gotta do anything.”

                 Flustered, Frederick says: “It’s an order from the _Exalt_.”

                Nowi gives a loud harumph and keeps on moving away from him. He reaches for her arm and grabs it, but she resists him immediately, throwing up that arm and wiggling away before he can grip her firmly.

                “Get off!” she snaps.

                He stops in his tracks, and he drops his voice to boom: “Nowi, calm yourself this instant.”

                This is a mistake, and he realizes it the instant she lets out a noise of anger and storms off in earnest, her purple cape flying up and her fists balled.

                “ _NOWI_ ,” he calls after her, booming loud. “Stop right this instant!”

                But she doesn’t. He starts after her, in long, swift strides, and when he reaches for her again, this time she shrieks and wheels away from him.

                She _runs._

                Frederick has sparred with this girl — this _dragon_ — enough to know her tells. When he sees her skin prickle and her ears sit low and pinned down, he knows things are going wrong. He can see it in the narrowing of her pupils, the way her voice goes up and _rings._  

                He knows, right then, that things are about to go _utterly_ wrong.

                He breaks out into a full sprint, and he closes the gap between them very quickly. If he can seize her arm and pin her, he can perhaps prevent her from transforming — after all, he has no chance of stopping a full manakete from doing whatever she pleases, not unless he wants to cut her down.  

                His fingers catch her cloak.

                He pulls hard.

                Nowi lets out a tremendous squeak as she is yanked by the throat, and Frederick pays no mind to it –– he’s sorry to do it, but he knows she’s unhurt, having a dragon’s constitution. He hauls her with him as they come to a crashing halt against the wall.

                “Do _not––_ ” he snaps, but he stops short. She’s suspended by his grip, but it doesn’t stop her from spinning and lashing out at his face with one hand, and he barely misses getting her rapidly-sprouting claws to his face.

                “LET GO!” 

                She spits and hisses at him, making a high-pitched noise that rings off his ears, and she gets a foot on his abdomen and tries to push away from him. He’s momentarily blinded by the brilliant light her body emits mid-transformation, but he can feel the foot against him growing.

                Frederick wonders, alarmed, if any man has ever survived trying to hold onto a transforming manakete. At this close distance, she may just kill him in panic.

                So he lets go.

                She tears away from him, gaining just enough distance to unfurl her great wings, and within mere seconds she is in her full glory –– hundreds of pounds of lean flesh and thick scale, brilliant yellow with great green fronds, screaming like a banshee.

                “Mean! You’re mean!” she wails, her dragon-voice ringing in his ears.

                She tears down the hall, and Frederick sprints after her — it is only her panic that allows him to keep up, within feet of her lashing tail, her wings struggling to get clearance in the hallways. He’s not sure what the hell he could possibly do to stop her, but he must try. 

                A hundred yards ahead are a couple palace guards, already raising their lances in uneasy defense, already well aware of the commotion.

                Frederick shouts: 

                "Stop her! Just STOP her! STOP THAT DRAGON!”

                There’s precious little two men with lances can do to stop a careening manakete without running her through, but they raise lance to block her path anyway. Nowi screams and takes a sharp turn, and Frederick follows. The two guards follow, too. 

                “The chapel’s ahead!” Frederick bellows ahead. “Close the doors!”

                But there’s no one ahead to close the doors. Nowi tucks her wings in close and barely fits through the frame, and then she takes to the air in the greater space of the chapel. She’s well overhead by time she reaches the ambulatory, and Frederick realizes they’re about to be in a lot of trouble.

                She has nowhere to go but to turn around on _them_.

                “NOWI!” he roars. “Calm yourself, girl!”

                “I’ll show you, STUPID!” she shrieks.

                And to Frederick’s great surprise, Nowi just barrels forward anyway, and she bursts through one of the great windows, showering blue and red glass everywhere. Frederick reaches the window quickly, glass crunching under the thick leather soles of his boots, but by time he has a boot on the windowsill to jump out onto the roof after her, Nowi is already well beyond his reach, twisting and writhing in the air. He watches her skid off a lower roof and then finally unfurl her wings well enough to take full flight.

                And just like that, she is away on the winds.

                “What in Naga’s name just happened?” one of the guards says, low and stunned.

                “Nowi,” Frederick says, low and unamused. His stomach sinks low in his gut for the millionth time that day, and he finds himself gripped in yet another cold sweat.

                “Should I send for the Exalt, sir?” the other guard asks.

                Frederick looks at them both. They’re both looking at him in alarm, and he’s not sure that it’s entirely because of the manakete. He feels alarmed, unsettled, and he shouldn’t let that show.

                Frederick heaves a deep breath and composes himself.

                “No,” he says. “I will inform him. You will speak of this to no one. Not a single soul.”

                “Should we return to our posts?” one guard asks.

                Frederick nods.

                “Yes. And one of you, fetch some of the staff to handle all this glass. I want it cleaned up before the Exalt sees.”

                Both guards nod and bow their heads curtly, and off they go.

                Frederick waits until they reach the door, and then he sits on the nearest seat to catch his breath, tucked away in the ambulatory, where a priest might sit for private conversations. He’s not winded in the physical sense — no, he takes far too much pride in his physique to let some four hundred or so days of peacetime turn him into a slouch — but an immediate sense of failure overwhelms him.

                His lord’s nephew and friend have left their posts, and very well may be hostages. There’s a woman claiming to be his lord’s late wife, a heroine of the realm that many know to be dead, and her purpose is vague but highly suspicious. There’s a dragon careening out of Ylisstol at this moment, presumably back to the impostor, which means he has lost his guide. He may be forced to retire from his life’s work. He’s furious at Nowi, and the Stranger, and Owain and Cynthia, and the Council, and most of all at himself. 

                He is perhaps most to blame of all. He knows precisely how much it would hurt Lord Chrom to know what is being kept from him, but he also knows the cost of opening his lord’s wounds so carelessly. He’s kept more secrets today than he has in Chrom’s entire life, and that feels like the blackest mark of them all.

                A deep feeling of shame comes then, and Frederick lets out a long, hard breath. He listens to the scrape of glass on stone as the maids arrive and busy themselves with sweeping up the mess.

                He must endure.

                From the chapel comes a woman’s voice, and then the gasp of a maid: “Milord!”

                So Frederick straightens his tie and move right back to business. His Lord is right there with his daughter, looking for all the world confused and tired, and Frederick squares his shoulders. He must be dutiful.

                "What the hell happened?" Chrom asks.

                Frederick turns to see the broken window and crumbling frame where Nowi had made her hasty exit. He tries to be witty, but it just comes out dry.

                "Ah," Frederick says. "I was hoping to have that repaired before you noticed.”

                Chrom smiles a little at that, and Frederick thinks of the time that Chrom had broken a window in one of the formal sitting rooms. Chrom had been so nervous, a twitching boy of eight clutching Frederick’s trouser leg: _Please don’t let Emmeryn find out! Fix this! Pleeeeaaase!_

                And then there’s Morgan, older than Chrom had been in that moment, certainly, but still youthful and worried-looking and sweet. That hits Frederick like a brick to the gut, but it’s also grounding. Ada’s whole family here at once, all trying to keep themselves together. 

                He can’t let anything ruin that. 

                So Frederick breathes, and stays calm despite his blood boiling at Nowi’s insistence on being difficult, and sees the little family through the terror of an expensive broken window. He excuses himself shortly, and as he leaves the room, he hears his Lord utter: “When Frederick brings Owain and Cynthia home, we’ll discuss going to the Mila Tree. Alright?”

                His tangle of emotions that narrows itself down to one, solitary thought as he walks down the hall, back up to his quarters to gather his things.

                He thinks:  

 _If by some wild miracle this_ is _Ada, I will drag her home kicking and screaming if I need to._

* * *

                Frederick returns to his quarters promptly, to dress and depart as swiftly as possible. Cherche has their personal effects packed already, and she’s standing amongst their armor and weaponry. His personal lance, Joyeux, is still on the wall, right next to Cherche’s unnamed and ribboned battle axe. Those will be the last things to pick up; the rest of the weapons have already been prepared in the armory, Frederick assumes.

                “Ready to go?” Cherche asks.

                “One more thing, first,” Frederick replies. “I need to write a letter for Gerome.”

                Cherche nods, and she crosses the room to the desk, pulling out a crisp sheet of parchment and a pen and ink before Frederick can get around the bags to her.

                “Thank you,” he says absently, sitting. She leans over him, folding her arms against the broad shelf of his shoulders as he hunches over the parchment.

                “Feeling sore for leaving him?” she asks, and she reaches to tuck his hair behind his ears; the front is getting long again, and it falls in his eyes when he bends over a desk. 

                “Much sorer than he feels, I’m sure,” Frederick says. It sounds a little bitter, perhaps, but Frederick loves his son dearly and Gerome resists it with all his might –– unsurprising, given who he inherited his might from. 

                “Hmm,” Cherche hums. She leans against his spine, watching every word that swirls from his pen nib. “As I said before, darling… give him time, and a bit of space, and he’ll be here when we get back.”

                “If he doesn’t take off again,” Frederick says, pointedly.

“He won’t,” Cherche says. She kisses his temple.

                Frederick lapses into silence. He writes many letters for Gerome, mostly long rambling letters full of fatherly advice and whatever kindnesses he thinks might help, a healthy mix of things he’d been told by his own father and mother when he had been a boy. He’s been doing this for some time now and never heard a response from Gerome, either on paper or in person, and for all he knows Gerome throws them out unopened, but with his son so prone to taking any distant mission he can, it fills some void in Frederick to do it anyway. 

                If he couldn’t fuss over Chrom and Lissa and their children, he would likely drive himself insane trying to expend the paternal care that Gerome carefully avoids.

                He still hopes, though, that Gerome will want to read them someday, if not now. That’s enough to keep bothering with writing them at all.

                “If I really am beyond Chrom’s service, then perhaps there will be time for us to grow our own family,” he remarks. “Perhaps Gerome would come home more often for a little brother or sister.”

                Cherche chuckles.

                “Are we to have a baby as blackmail?”

                She’s teasing, and Frederick knows it, but he still feels his face grow hot. He blows gently on the ink to encourage it to dry.

                “That’s not what I meant,” Frederick said. “My main point was that we’ll have more time. If I’m in Morgan’s service instead, the worst of my day will probably be taking him on hikes or fishing or whatnot.”

                “True,” she says. She gently ruffles the fine hairs at the back of his neck. “We’ll see what happens." 

                He folds the letter and presses it into an envelope, and then seals it carefully with a drop of hot wax and his stamp. Cherche reaches for it when it is mostly solidified again, so he gives it to her. She presses a big kiss to the wax, obscuring it hopelessly but leaving an imprint of the texture of her lips.

                “For our big baby,” she says. 

                Frederick looks at Cherche and loves her a little more just for the sight of her pressing a kiss to the seal of his note, and before he knows it, a warm chuckle bubbles up from him, despite everything.

                “I’ll put this in his bunk,” she says. She nods her head towards the bags; “You change and ready the horses.”

* * *

                It takes two trips to take everything down, his shoulders almost comically laden with the things they will need for more than a week’s journey. It would be easy to rally the help of some servants to lug everything down, but Frederick prides himself on doing it himself, because that’s the only way he knows it’ll be done right.

                On the second trip down he is nearly to the door when Lucina and Morgan pass him by, both sweaty and jovial from training. Lucina gives him a curt nod and a small smile in acknowledgement, but Morgan watches him go by like an owl, not taking his eyes off of Frederick for an instant. _Here it comes_ , Frederick thinks.

                “You go on ahead, I’m going to talk to Frederick,” Morgan says to Lucina, and Frederick just keeps on walking. He has things to do. Morgan calls: “Frederick!”

                “Not now, Morgan,” Frederick says. “I don’t want to drop anything.”

                Too late. Morgan has not only chased him down but also grabbed him by the sleeve, eye wide. Frederick has to stop so he doesn’t overbalance somehow.

                “Frederick, stop,” Morgan says. And then, breathlessly: "Take me with you.”

                Frederick pauses, but he refuses to entertain the thought for even a second.

                "Prince Morgan," Frederick says, patiently, “Unhand me, I must go.”

                "No," Morgan says. He moves right around in front to block his path.

                "I won't ride off without a word," Frederick promises. “Just unhand me, so I can set these down.”

                Morgan reluctantly lets go, but he doesn’t budge at all. Frederick sighs.

                "I cannot take you," Frederick says. “You shouldn’t be leaving the castle grounds, not when your father needs you.”

                “He doesn’t _need_ me," Morgan says. "Why shouldn't I help find my friends?"

                "Please," Frederick says. "You must understand, Morgan; matters of desertion are very serious. While I have no doubt for the aid you could lend on such a trip, your father––”

                "He would agree to it," Morgan argues. "You could say you wanted to march me through a volcano and he would let you because he trusts you with everything." 

                Frederick almost laughs, some burst of pride that appeals to him despite the insanity of the idea. "Morgan," he says, "I simply cannot."

                "Then I order it," Morgan announces. "Take me with you."

                Frederick shakes his head.

                "I answer to your father," he replies. At least for another day, he answers to Chrom alone. He shifts the bags slightly to touch his hand to the top of Morgan's head, affectionate but firm. "And to your mother."

                Morgan lifts his chin and he says: “You think she’s dead.”

                Frederick lets the silence linger for a second; does Morgan know? Did he overhear or surmise something from Nowi? No, he figures; that’s being paranoid.

                “All the more reason for me to heed her, Morgan,” Frederick says, softly.

                Morgan looks displeased. He has his mother's kind of fury, too: laughing incredulous offense. To take grave offence at not being taken seriously runs thick in his blood from both sides, but Frederick has quarreled with Ada too many times to see it any other way. Chrom readily accepts boundaries, as long as he has a strong guiding hand. Ada didn’t.

                “You _have_ to take me with you," Morgan repeats.

 _To what end?_ Frederick wonders. Morgan does not need to see an impostor in his mother’s image, and god forbid Chrom ever hears wind of it. It would break his heart. But Morgan does not seem convinced, and he scarcely acknowledges the response at all. His fists are balled at his sides.

                "I promise you, Prince Morgan," Frederick says. "When I return, we will have a very frank conversation on this matter. Be good while I’m gone.”

                And with that he heads off into the stables, and Morgan doesn’t follow. Shortly afterwards Cherche joins him again, and in the doorway he has a quick conversation with Chrom and Lissa.

                Then, with a great many feelings of dread in his heart, Frederick heads out with his wife at his side. 

* * *

                 He and Cherche set out as the light is fading from the day. It’s a poor time to travel — they'll be making camp almost as soon as the light of the city fades, leaving the roads too dark and dangerous to navigate on. It’s better than laying in bed and waiting until dawn to get moving, though.

                At least it’s peaceful out beyond the city, Cherche gliding overhead on Minerva's broad leathery wings, the stars coming out. It's a lonely way to travel, in a way, Frederick and his horse and another horse laden with supplies well below Cherche and Minerva, but it’s bearable. Speed is necessary on this journey, so a bit of loneliness in the saddle can be forgotten.

                With any luck, too, it’ll only be a week or so, if they can track down the Stranger and the children swiftly. With any luck, they can simply eliminate the Stranger, and take the children home immediately, on a course straight for Ylisse. With any luck at all, in the absolute slightest, he won’t have to tangle with Nowi again. He wants to believe it will really be that simple. 

                But if it really is Ada –– on the tiny, smothered hope that it really is Ada, back to life and refusing to come home –– then gods, Frederick hopes they can still return immediately. If not, he might really have to make good on his promise to drag her back.

                First, however, they have to track the party down.

                Tracking with an airborne mount is simple, but simpler still with a wyvern instead of a pegasus. The dragons are small but hardy, and they need not eat so often, but they carry terribly little in the way of supplies. Thus it becomes somewhat necessary to pair riders on wyverns with riders on horses: the horse can carry more. And, if he is being entirely honest, Frederick isn’t fond of riding wyverns, anyway. He’s much more secure with a good horse under him, and he never leaves home without a good horse. The only rub is that a wyvern travels much faster than a horse, and is thus somewhat limited in how far it can go in a day.

                It takes them three days to reach the mountain chain that divides — for now — the halidoms of Ylisse and Plegia. Here is where their real work begins, and their schedules change somewhat. Cherche sleeps much of the day, posted out somewhere while he rides on ahead, and come nightfall she catches up, meets with him to touch base, and then takes to the sky to hunt. 

                It would be easiest to find them at night. The land is so open and unsettled in these parts, a campfire would stick out like a beacon, and while Frederick rests in the evenings and coordinates their plans, Cherche scouts.

                The first night of scouting, however, Cherche lands with nothing. Frederick feels sore for it, and he knows she does, too. It would be foolish to expect instant results, but it stings just the same. They settle down into an uneasy dinner, their only time together in the past day despite having been on this journey for the better part of a week. 

                "You know," Cherche says, "I was thinking, why does the Stranger call you Fredericson in the postscript? I've never known Ada to use much in the way of nicknames... she wouldn't even use pet names with her husband."

                Frederick shakes his head. "She has used one on me before, but that is not the one."

                Cherche looks at him, curious. "She had a nickname for you?"

                Frederick doesn't feel particularly inclined to repeat it, particularly not to his wife, but it would be more suspicious to refuse to say it. So he drops his voice and mutters: "Freddy Bear."

                Cheche straightens up a little and gives him an unamused look. He finds this reaction somewhat petty, but he's never known Cherche to be anything but obvious about her sentiments.

                "She used it to get on my nerves," Frederick says, pointedly. "And she did that before you came into my life, mind."

                "I see," Cherche says, and then she briskly moves along: "Well, why the new nickname?"

                "I don't know," Frederick says. "I imagine she wants to invoke some sort of lightheartedness between us, but it doesn't exactly work, does it?" 

                Cherche scoffs.

                "Whoever this Stranger is," she says, "she's made a good effort, hasn't she?"

                Frederick just nods. 

                And after another two nights of no sightings and both of their tensions running high, thinking of their lives back at the castle and the secrets they’re keeping and their son who must be home without them by now, Frederick begins to think it is a fool's errand to have come at all. How are two people to locate three people (and perhaps a manakete) in the wilderness with only an undated letter and a vague direction to work with?

                It's then, of course, that Cherche wakes him at some small hour, crouched over him in his tent. He stirs and looks up at her, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

                "News?" He asks.

                "I think I have them," she says. "I got as close as I dared, but I am certain it was Cynthia on guard. They're barely five miles off."

                Gods, he's so relieved he kisses her then, and any brief tension is forgotten.

                “With any luck, we’ll be done tomorrow, then. Rest for the evening with me," Frederick bids her. He shifts over on the thin camp mattress, and Cherche doesn't even bother fetching her proper undergarments from the packs; she just strips her riding leathers off and crawls in beside him in scarcely more than a hair ribbon and stockings.

                The long days in the saddle and the lonely nights huddled in their one-man tent have made him tired. She winds herself against him, long legs tangled with his, her rosy hair tied back with the ribbon that catches on his fingers when he pets her hair. The coolness of the summer night is a stark contrast of the humidity of the day, but it’s a welcome excuse to lay together with the bedroll’s covers kicked aside.

                “Cherche?” Frederick murmurs against her hair.

                “Yes, darling?” Cherche returns, hummed like a long, deep breath.

                “When this nonsense is done, I may just retire completely if Chrom won’t have me. I want to make babies with you,” he says, voice low.

                Cherche laughs, the only sound around for countless miles, and in that very moment, she is undoubtedly the center of the whole universe. She stretches in his arms and folds an arm around his neck, to cradle the back of his head and press her nose to his. 

                “What a lovely idea,” she says, and she kisses him, and because of how long the days have been, they fall asleep in each others’ arms without much more said or done.

* * *

                 Morning brings anxiety, and both of them are up by dawn, putting a good night’s sleep far behind them. Together they stash the bulk of their packs in a cluster of trees, making a good attempt at hiding them even if Frederick knows they are a long way from any other people. They'll come back for their things later; there’s no sense in carrying it all with them.

                After all, if the Stranger puts up a fuss at being caught, they won’t want to work large packs into their strategy. If they need spirit Owain and Cynthia away, too, their mounts will be swifter without the baggage.

                They’ll come back for it later, Frederick figures. The only things of value he has are on his person –– his wedding ring, the letter from the Stranger and his father’s knife. 

                They leave together, though Cherche becomes a speck on the sky in no time. Five miles is nothing to Frederick’s good courser horse, who has taken her rider much further than that in a single day on the war campaign; Frederick doesn’t expect to be out of Cherche’s sight for long. In fact, when he comes within a mile of the general area Cherche had sighted, she circles back to him and lands.

                “They haven’t moved camp yet,” Cherche says, barely dislodging herself from the saddle. She points to the West. “They’re close; close enough I think they sighted me. The children are making breakfast. No sign of our Stranger, or Nowi –– if they’re at camp at all, they’re hidden in the tents.”

                “Curious,” Frederick says. They’d imagined the children would be unfettered if it really was Cynthia keeping watch the night before, but it seems unlikely to be a matter of hostage-taking now.

                “If they're being held against their will, they have ample opportunity to flee,” Cherche sighs.

                Frederick’s relief at having found them comes with a deep sense of dread — somehow, he would have preferred a kidnapping. Routing an enemy is as easy as a mission could get. 

                Cherche just pets Minerva’s neck, hand running over the massive scales in long, tender strokes, as though the wyvern were a common horse or a loyal dog.

                “They don’t have much time to flee, if that’s their intent,” Frederick says. “Well, let them prepare, then. We will face them soon.”

                He’s sure he sounds confident, and magnificently so, but his heart is beating in his chest harder than ever before.

* * *

                 Their camp is at the top of a hill, steep and wide. Frederick leaves the treeline at its base, his horse under him twitching to run it –– he’s never known a horse who didn’t want to take an incline at a run –– but he keeps the reins short. He can see Cherche circling above, and though it’s very likely that she’s been seen, he can’t see anything over the rise yet. 

                If the Stranger chose this place for their camp, she chose wisely. The hill is a good vantage point, and if anything comes from the trees, they’ll have hundreds of yards to cross, without cover, to reach camp.

                If the Stranger is someone who will attack him on approach, then the only thing between him and an arrow is Cherche hitting them first.

                Frederick takes a deep breath and finds himself already steeled. He nudges his horse and up they go. They don’t have to get too high before the camp comes into view, nothing more than a Ylissean army-issue tent scarcely big enough for two and a campfire. There’s three mounts, too; a saddled pegasus and Owain’s terrible rouncey horse, the one Frederick had recently promised to replace at the next foaling, and a smaller horse that looks suitable only for carrying supplies. 

                And, of course, there’s the children. Owain and Cynthia are standing, necks craned at the sky to look at Cherche circling above –– they’re shouting, and waving, and then Cynthia calls Cherche’s name.

                And then Frederick sees her.

                The Stranger.

                He draws himself up tighter in the saddle as he draws closer, and despite his best judgement, he lets his horse into a run, racing up the hill. The woman looks his way and heads towards him in a heartbeat, jogging down the hill towards him. Frederick slows his horse almost immediately, and he is practically upon her in a mere moment, so he reins his horse hard. She scarcely steps back, even as the courser’s massive hooves come within steps of her toes, and the horse’s great muzzle threatens to bully her right off her feet.

                He looks down at her with something like awe — for an instant, he almost believes Nowi had spoken the truth on her appearance alone. This woman before him is the spitting image of Ada, tall and fair and curvaceous, even under cheap layered clothing. Her usual ponytail is thick and windblown. Her mouth is hard. She looks at him with _instant_ recognition, eyes widening and her mouth curving into a smile.

                But he doesn’t believe it. Not yet.

                “Sir Frederick,” she says, relieved, and not at all sarcastic. 

                Ada had never called him _Sir_ Frederick in any seriousness in all their years together. 

                He makes the call. He points his lance forward. The heavy latticed head bobs ominously at her breast, and the woman looks down at it, and then up at him. 

                "Identify yourself," Frederick says, low and serious.

                "What's this about?" she asks.

                There’s indignation at her eyes, but she makes no effort to move or draw the sword at her hip.

                “Frederick! Unhand her!” Owain shouts, alarmed, and both Owain and Cynthia racing down the hill towards them. 

                “Stay back!” Frederick orders, but they don’t. In fact, both step behind the Stranger in support, and Frederick is suddenly very glad to have his own reinforcements. Some twenty feet behind him, Cherche and Minerva land with a hard thud, unmoving but at the ready.

                “You know,” the woman says, "I expected _some_ attitude. I didn't expect to be at a blade's end."

                "All cares in their own measure," Frederick replies. “Who are you, impostor?”

                Her eyebrows raise. She looks back at Owain, and then Cynthia, as if she isn’t at the point of his lance. Ada was like that, though –– she’d step over her own husband’s body to appear in control of a situation, to play it to her advantage.

                "Impostor?” the woman says, incredulous.  She gestures at the children. ”Gods, Frederick, don’t you think they’d be able to tell?"

                "Silence," he says. “Identify yourself.”

                "Are you crazy?!" Cynthia exclaims. She's left her lance at camp, but it doesn’t seem to deprive her of any courage; she steps before the woman, seizing Frederick’s lance just below the head, by the shaft, and Frederick firms his grip but does not withdraw.

                “Unhand my blade, Cynthia,” Frederick orders, “you’re already in enough trouble as it is.”

                Cynthia doesn’t budge, her expression determined. Frederick looks to Owain, who has his hand on the hilt of his sword, and the woman, who has yet to give any indication that she will stuggle, and the manakete girl hissing at her feet. 

                “Why don’t you put down your weapon?” the woman says. “Let’s just talk.”

                "Prove yourself first, then," Frederick says.

                He looks down at her with a hard mix of concern and challenge. She looks back up at him, and she’s carefully ruled now — the furrowed brow, but a neutral mouth and unemotional eyes. Ada had given him that look a million times. 

                “Where's Chrom?” the woman demands. “You didn’t bring him?”

                He decides, in that instant, that he will not parley with someone so unwilling to identify herself, and that Ada would surely not try him like this. 

                “How dare you speak his name,” Frederick replies.

                But before he can break his lance from Cynthia’s grip, he finds himself at the point of a blade, too.

                Owain’s sword-arm is trembling, extended at its full length, Mistletainn in his hand pointed at Frederick’s throat.

                “I expect viewless consequences for my actions, both this and the deeds before,” Owain says, and despite the waver of his arm, there’s a temerity in his voice. “But guiltily would I sleep if I stood and watched you treat my lady aunt like a common brigand.”

                Frederick draws himself higher in the saddle, and he does not lower his lance. Indeed, Cynthia grips it harder, and Frederick finds himself in a precarious situation. If this woman’s sway over the children is this strong, there’s no telling how far they could be pushed.

                “Lower your blade, boy,” Frederick says. “You’re in quite a bit of trouble as it is without cutting throats." 

                Owain doesn’t even budge. 

                “Owain,” the Stranger says, tensely. 

                “He threatens you, Auntie, I won’t stand idly by while he has you at lance’s point!” Owain shoots back.

                “You wanna talk, we’ll talk!” Cynthia shouts, right at Frederick. “But you have to back down, first!”

                Frederick has never done such a thing in his life. He looks between the children, who both look up at him with gritted teeth but a palpable tension in their eyes. And then he looks to the Stranger, who stares back at him. Her eyes are dark, her pupils wide as canyons.

                The longer he looks, the more convincing she seems, and though he won’t let her soften his heart, _she_ certainly seems to back down. She puts a hand on Owain’s shoulder, firm but fair. 

                “Owain, Cynthia, at ease,” she says, carefully. “And you the same, Frederick.”

                Reluctantly, both Owain and Cynthia back off, and so Frederick has no choice but to do the same. The Stranger just watches him, and she’s breathing so fast that her entire chest shakes.

                “We’ll _talk_ ,” she says.


	5. Like Something Out Of A Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mother was never fond of narrow spirits; Morgan wouldn't be her child if he just sat idly by and waited. Father has always carried torches for whatever moves him most; Morgan wouldn't be his child if he didn't leap to action when his heart tells him to. Neither of them ever instructed him on what to do when his convictions go against what they would want, so when Morgan decides to leave, he has to hope it's still something they can be proud of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes:
> 
> I struggled with this chapter. I don't know why; maybe it's only going to be apparent because I mentioned it, making this note a form of self-sabotage. However, I struggled so much that the next four chapters are all pretty much 50% written. Thank you, writer's block; I somehow get so much more written with you than without you.
> 
> A few days after this chapter's publication, I'll be in Japan for a few weeks! I doubt I'll be working on anything lengthy in that time, but hopefully I will come home with a lot of shorter stuff. I write so much on vacations.
> 
> I'm loving Fates. I promise not to get too distracted by it. (You're probably in for another MUverse, though.)

 .

 

 

 

              There are five things that happen on Morgan's birthday that tell Morgan that his mother is alive.

              The first is the ox. Oxen are gargantuan, broad-bodied with great horns curved like sickles. Morgan, a boy who had once ridden behind his mother’s saddle into the heat of battle, who had seen a Fell dragon crawl over a mountaintop with his own eyes, had felt the tickle of fright at an oxen’s slaughter. After four hundred or so days of curling up with books in the study and exploring quiet creeks and thickets with a notebook in hand, Morgan had felt his first reminder that there is excitement beyond castle life. He had run his hands over the slaughtered oxen’s heavy side, the short hair of its skin prickly and coarse, and mere minutes after the slaughter, heat had still radiated from the animal’s body. _Homecoming_ , he’d read. Oxes were slaughtered to celebrate a homecoming. He hadn’t known who this particular ox was slaughtered for, but he liked to imagine it would be his mother. That would have been a nice birthday gift.

              The second is the poem. Lissa had fumbled the details, true, but Morgan knew what it was supposed to be. Once upon a time, Sumia had said, laughing: "Cynthia showed it to me. Owain's gotten her into poetry!” Morgan had been dozing in his mother’s tent, curled up in his bedroll and listening to his mother discussing the poem with Sumia, and their hushed voices and laughter hadn’t been much different than the sound of the rain on the canvas over their heads. Morgan had drifted in and out of sleep listening to his mother talking about the clouds, her voice warm on his ears and sticking to his memory like candy. "It's not what I expected," she'd said, "but it's lovely.” Morgan had felt sad, hearing his aunt misremember this poem his mother had called lovely. He'd thought: _Owain doesn't know how sad that is to hear,_ but then again, didn’t Owain pick a very particular passage, too?

              The third is his father — today was supposed to be _his_ day, his _birthday,_ a day just for him with his family. What did he get for it? An argument. Quarrels. Crying. Cajoling. Morgan doesn’t know what to do with his father sometimes: he makes these grand speeches about having hope, and having conviction that Mother will return to them someday, but then what comes of all those words? How do they find her when he is trapped under the weight of the Exalt’s title? Morgan can’t pretend to have ever thought much about ruling –– Lucina will rule, Lucina’s children will rule –– but if a King is sworn to his duties at state, then is a prince not free to ride out and change the world? They’ve been a little family like this almost as long as they were a family with Mother, and that scares Morgan. It scares him so much. But he thinks: he wants to find her again. He has to.

              The fourth is the words from Frederick's mouth, when he'd thought he was alone with broken glass and the shadow of a fleeing manakete. Morgan's heart had beaten so hard, his body laid still on a chapel pew bench, a book in his hand but utterly ignored. Frederick had been shouting, and other men, too. He’d seen familiar manakete wings overhead, great beating fronds well above the tops of the pews. Morgan’s heart had just about stopped, and there, crammed between the pew seat and the back of the next row, he’d stared at the spine of his book: _All Farewells Are Sudden_. And then, when he’d crawled out to his father and sister and Sir Frederick, and they spoke of Owain and Cynthia, and Frederick insisted on riding out to them, Morgan _knew_ he had to go looking, too.

              The last is a dream. And technically, it happened after midnight — the end of his birthday, at least for another three hundred and sixty something days — but he’d counted it just the same.

 

* * *

 

              He always has vivid dreams. Good or bad, they feel so real that waking up feels disorienting.

              Morgan wakes up with a start, his heart pounding and his lungs seized by some terrible discord. And he's not just sitting up, staring into the dark — he’s already moving, the floor cool on the soles of his feet. He moves right down the hall to Lucina's room, and he lets himself in without a sound. He goes right to his sister's bed and crawls in beside her.

              "Morgan," Lucina murmurs, half asleep. He can see her in the dark, her eyes closed but her expression undoubtedly awake. She doesn't sleep like others do — Lucina sleeps with one eye open, in the figurative sense. She calls it "survival sleep,” but Morgan calls it "can't relax." He hunkers down and pulls the covers of her bed up around him and sinks into the mattress comfortably. They have identical beds, yet hers always feels more comfortable than his.

              "Another dream?" she says, tired.

              "Yeah," he says. Lucina sighs and rolls to face him, a pillow clutched to her chest and her hair so aflutter that a piece is caught in her mouth. (Yuck.) 

              "Tell me about it," Lucina says. (She never _asks_ like father does.)

              Morgan stares at her in the dark.

              "It was about a house," he says. "A house deep in the mountains. And Mother was there."

              Lucina opens her eyes. Her left eye’s Mark glows faintly in the dark, in a bit of a holy way that Morgan envies. His Mark never glows 'cause skin doesn't light up like eyes do. She reaches out to hold his hand, and he lets her cover his Mark with her palm and wind her fingers around his.

              He thinks of the ox and the poem and Nowi breaking the window, and Frederick all determined to leave, and he feels _sure_ he knows what it means. 

              "What was she doing?"

              "Gardening."

              "Mother couldn't even keep a daisy alive without a castle gardener," Lucina says, barely above a whisper. She smiles. 

              "I know; she's so bad at it in real life, but she wasn't in the dream," Morgan says. "She grew hundreds of them, all over the place, and until she pruned them you couldn't see the windows 'cause the windowboxes were overflowing with flowers."

              "Sounds pretty. What else?" Lucina asks.

              "We ate cake," Morgan says. "And she was laughing at something, but I hadn’t heard what.” He pauses. “That’s it. That’s all of it.”

              It never sounds like much, said out loud, but he’s not sure how to explain the feeling of being there in words. He hopes she can imagine it, though, and why leaving a dream like that would shake him as much as the nightmares. 

              "Let's figure out each bit," Lucina says. They always do this. It's Morgan's game because he puts more stock in dreams than she does, but she almost always humors him in it, even if she refuses to pick apart her dreams the same way. She says: “Why would you dream about plants?”

              "Okay," Morgan says. "I met Noire in the gardens yesterday so she could give me my birthday gift, and she showed me some new plant. She said it was called a succulent. She said they were forgiving, so that's why she tried growing them."

              "Okay," Lucina murmurs. "So Mother was a terrible gardener, but the succulents are forgiving, so maybe she could do that."

              "Yeah," Morgan agrees.

              “What about the cake?"

              “It was my birthday!" Morgan laughs.

              “That's not hard," Lucina agrees. "And it's fair to think about Mother more on your birthday."

              Morgan hums pleasantly, and there's a small silence while he waits for her to pick apart the next bit. Lucina holds his hand a little tighter.

              "What about the house?" Lucina asks, quietly.

              Morgan pauses. He doesn't know -- he can't even think of why. He lives in a castle, the most illustrious thing possible compared to a modest little cottage in the mountains.

              "I dunno. Maybe it's the part that doesn't make sense."

              Lucina is quiet for a moment.

              "Do you think your dreams mean something?" Lucina asks.

              Morgan pauses. He does, truthfully. He thinks they mean a great deal, and the possibility of that is overwhelming sometimes.

              "Mother had dreams, before," Morgan says. 

              "Those were _memories,_ " Lucina says. 

              "Maybe these are too," Morgan says, but no, they don't feel like _his_ memories. For a while, somewhere between four hundred or so days ago and now, he’d thought they were his lost memories, or maybe hers. Memories bubbling up from the void (or wherever she is) and alive in him, like some sort of message, mother to son. Gradually he’d realized they were just dreams, and not likely her memories at all, but by then he was sure she was out there, anyway. He didn’t need dreams when he had hope.

              Lucina breathes softly, and Morgan peers at her to see if she’s fallen asleep, but no, she’s just closed her eyes. She lets go of his hand.

              He feels a tickle of courage in him.

              "Luci?" Morgan asks. 

              "Yeah?"

              "Father said we'd know when Mother is back," he says. "Do you think he meant we'd _magically_ know, like we'd feel it in the earth? Or do you think we'd be _told_?"

              Lucina doesn't reply for a moment, and then she opens her eyes. She says, "Nobody's really looking for her but us, and even then, what are we doing? Who would tell us?"

              "What's that supposed to mean? Father has armies around the continent, all of them ordered to look for her." 

              "They're not there for her, though," Lucina says, carefully, and Morgan knows that. Morgan knows the armies are stationed to rebuild after the war, and perhaps secure Plegia. Lucina adds: “The world has to keep going without her, Morgan. Most of the world thinks she's dead.”

              "Do you?" Morgan asks. It comes out more accusatory than he wants, but he doesn't feel very sorry about it. When Lucina still hesitates to reply, he sits up in bed and looks down at her. "Well?"

              "I don't know what I think," Lucina replies, finally. "I don't want to get my hopes up."

              "You always talk about her in past tense," Morgan says, and then growing bolder: “Lucina, she’s alive. I’m almost positive.”

              Lucina sighs, then.

              "Let's talk about this in the morning," she says to him, and that bossiness comes out. She's unhappy with him, and Morgan feels himself tense with frustration, but there's seldom anything he can do when Lucina gets into those moods. 

              So he just blurts out: "She's alive. I _know_ it."

              Lucina rolls away from him, facing the wall, pulling her pillow with her. She doesn't say anything, she just deafens him with silence.

              He throws off the covers and leaps from bed to storm off. She makes no effort to stop him.

              He could go back to his room, but he doesn’t. He goes by his father's room instead, as he is accustomed to, carefully opening the door only to see the bed empty. It only takes him a second to realize where his father is –– he's standing on the balcony, the tall doors open to the night sky. The wind blows the curtains up like ghosts, and when they aren't tangled up in Morgan's line of sight, Morgan can see Father leaning against the balcony railing.

              That’s new.

              Father is looking out at the horizon, past the dim glow of the city below, his elbows locked and his shoulders stiff. He's stripped to the waist, and in the ambient moonlight, Morgan can see the fist-sized burn scar just left of his spine. It matches the one on the front, Morgan knows, which is bigger, more frightening, with jagged edges. It’s never comfortable to look at, knowing where it came from.

              And then he realizes, with some embarrassment, that Father is crying, albeit quietly. Morgan might not have noticed if he hadn't gotten closer, but he supposes the only reason he got in the door unnoticed at all is because his father is so distracted.

              Morgan swallows hard. He thinks to comfort his father in any number of ways: gently hug him and ask if he's okay, wait for him to notice and then console him, cry himself and then be sad together, at least. His initial plan dies; how can he see this and then announce that he _knows_ Mother is alive?

              So Morgan doesn't do any of these things. He thinks, inwardly, that Father puts so much effort into being strong, and a good leader for Ylisse, and a solid shoulder to lean on. He worries that maybe saying something would make his father feel weak, and Morgan doesn't want that.

              His father glances back, suddenly, leaving Morgan standing there like a startled cat.

              “Oh,” Father says, a touch alarmed, and then embarrassed — he turns away again, wiping his eyes, and then when he turns back he’s only mildly more put together. He says, softly: “Did you have another bad dream, Morgan?”

              “No,” Morgan says. Pretending he hasn’t just caught his father in a moment of weakness is awkward, uncomfortable. “It was a good one, I just…”

              He trails off. Father sighs, coming in off the balcony and closing the door, dragging the curtains closed so they’re in relative darkess again.

              “Want to sleep in here again?” Father asks.

              “It’s okay,” Morgan says. “I can go back to my bed, if you want to be alone.”

              “It’s fine, Morgan,” Father says, but he sounds so tired. “Come on. Stay.”

              Morgan isn’t sure how much he can argue. He hesitates, but then he crawls into his parents’ bed, scooting over to his mother’s side, where he has slept more nights than his own bed. The blankets are all rumpled, as though his father had already been to bed and risen again.

              “I’ll be back in a moment,” his father says, and then he disappears to the balcony again, leaving Morgan alone.

              Laying there in the dark, his mother’s pillow under his head and the blankets pulled up despite it being the middle of summer, Morgan waits for his father to come back. The room is eerie quiet, the windows cracked far enough that the breeze doesn’t whistle and the dark tapestries absorbing any quiet sound Morgan could make himself. He certainly hears nothing from his father, but he doesn’t want to pry by nearing the door again, so he just waits.

              Morgan glances around the room and then finds himself staring at his mother ––he almost shouts for Father before remembering her painting. His heart thumping in his chest, Morgan looks at his mother’s image and feels a little flighty. If she’s alive, maybe…

              The balcony door creaks as his father opens it, and Morgan closes his eyes and pretends to sleep. He doesn’t know if his father is convinced — or, truly, if his father is checking at all — but he stays very still. Morgan listens to his footsteps round the bed, and then feels the mattress buckle slightly under his father’s weight as he settles.

              “Can’t sleep again, huh?” Father says, softly. He sounds more put-together now, his voice clear.

              Morgan stays silent, and he feels his father roll over.

              “Sorry if that was uncomfortable to walk in on,” Father says, quietly still. “It’s just been rough, Morgan, and tomorrow’s going to be a long day. I hope you can understand that.”

              Morgan thinks about having been fished off a beautiful icy waterway by his father, who had been his friend for weeks — _months_ — before starting to feel like his father for real. But Mother, no, she was his mother instantly. She hadn't known him — there wasn't a trace of familiarity in her eyes, and that had hurt — but that hadn't mattered. She'd taken up the mantle of being his mother again the second he'd said it. 

              Laying in the dark, Morgan hopes his father can understand, because that’s when Morgan decides for sure that he’s absolutely going to find his mother.

 

* * *

 

               Morgan starts the day with the idea that he will be gone before sundown. From the moment he wakes up — late, oops — he is sure of it. There’s a conviction settled deep in him, right to the marrow of his bones, that tells him he’s going to find his Mother, and not a thing can stop him. He doesn’t have a clue in the world where she is, but he feels her presence somewhere in the world the same way he feels the summer heat, or the timelessness of peacetime, or the tension between himself and his family.

              He’s sick of grieving, he decides. He’s not like his father or his sister, who seem to relish sadness. Morgan doesn’t want anything to do with it anymore.

              He just needs to prepare.

              Morgan skips breakfast -- almost. He races in just long enough to get a distracted, one-armed hug from his father, and bop Lucina on the head so that she'll moan at him and have to adjust her tiara, and kiss his baby sister on her fat cheek so rapidly she squeals. He puts the entire breakfast table in an uproar and then rushes back out again, his pockets full of scones and a few sausages hot in his hand. He munches on one while he takes the stairs down to the courtyard, and then the other for the jog through the gardens to the lodgings where Noire lives with her family. He hops the little fence around their place to avoid walking all the way around to the gate, nearly losing a scone in the process.

              "Noire!" he calls, even as he knocks on the door.

              Noire doesn't answer, but her mother does. Tharja is dressed in a black robe that is somewhat precariously held closed by a purple sash, and she looks at him like she intends to gobble him up. Morgan takes a few steps back, but that hardly stops Tharja from immediately reaching into his personal space to pinch his cheek.

              "Look at you," Tharja says. "Rushing around to your business. I don't need to ask where you got that vigor from."

              "Uh, hello, Miss Tharja," Morgan says, to be polite, but the lady gives him the creeps so he doesn't linger on pleasantries. "Is Noire home?"

              He tries to lean up on the balls of his feet to see around her, but Tharja just scowls at him and turns back into the house.

              "Noire!" she calls. "Morgan's here––how much food are you going to pile on your plate, missy? You're going to get fat."

              Morgan waits, trying to be patient. He hears Noire mumble some reply and Tharja storms back inside and starts lecturing, but within a few minutes, Noire is out on the front step and closing the door swiftly behind her, flustered and red in the face. 

              "You didn't hear that, did you?" Noire asks, tucking her hair behind her ears nervously.

              "None of it," Morgan lies, and then he barrels on, because he's sure Tharja is listening on the other side of the door: "Can you come with me to talk?"

              "Y-yeah," Noire replies, looking over her shoulder at the door. She still has one hand on the handle. "Are we going far? I might have to ask..."

Morgan tries not to sigh, mostly because he doesn't want to make her feel bad, but he'll just never understand it. He scarcely asks his father for permission to do anything, and the worst he can imagine is a firm scolding from Frederick for not showing up for dinner. The most he'd ask his mother for is to borrow her books, and even then, he never felt too cowed to ask.

              "Not far," he promises. That much is true, at least.

              Noire nods and takes a deep breath. She turns back to the door and opens it a crack, and sure enough, there is Tharja, waiting imperiously with her arms folded and a scowl on her face.

              "Fine," Tharja says. "Go. But be back soon, or your breakfast will get cold."

              Morgan very much doubts that Tharja's ever prepared a decent meal in her life, let alone a hot one, but all that matters is that permission has been granted. He seizes Noire's hand and pulls her away, and he runs down the walkway with her in tow, this time towards the gate. Noire is quick on his heels in no time at all.

              Once they're out of the garden gates and well out of of earshot, Noire seems much brighter. Morgan clutches her hand with both of his -- he hopes she doesn't notice the remaining bit of sausage grease -- and he looks up at her hopefully.

              "What if I said I'm leaving today?" he said. "Would you come with me?"

              Noire's hard-won smile vanishes.

              "Huh?" she says. "Why?"

              “I’m going on an adventure, like Owain and Cynthia,” Morgan says. He doesn't want to say it outright until she agrees. "I need to go, but I know my father wouldn't let me if I told him. Would you come with me?"

              Noire hesitates, and then shakes her head.

              "Morgan, I can't," she says. "I have so much schooling to do, Father wants me to go to university, and it's that or assisting my mother, and I really don't..."

              She trails. Morgan understands at least a bit. He clutches her hands tighter.

              "If you don't want to, that's okay," he says, quickly. "But I wanted to ask you first."

              Noire shakes her head.

              "I don't think I can, Morgan," she says. "I'm sorry."

              "It's okay, maybe that's better," Morgan agrees. "But can you keep this a secret? Don't tell anyone what I'm planning."

              Concern alights on her face.

              "Morgan," she says, "are you going to get in trouble? Is it dangerous?"

              Morgan shakes his head.

              "They'll understand," he says. "They will."

              Noire doesn't seem to believe him, but she nods.

              "Okay," she says. She pulls her hand from his grip, gently. "Will you be gone long? What if no one can go with you?"

              Morgan laughs, just to put her at ease.

              "I want to be back in a week, maybe two! And if no one will come, well, I'll take along a few palace guards. They have to agree, right?" he jokes, and Noire giggles. He hopes it wouldn't come to that, though -- he's not as close with the others as he is with Noire, Owain and Cynthia, but maybe he could ply Brady or Kjelle. Severa would patently refuse, and the rest... well, they all have lives beyond the castle right now. Morgan could never reach them if he still hopes to leave today, which he certainly aims to.

              "Well," Noire says, simply. "Stay safe, okay?"

              Morgan laughs again and leans up on his toes to kiss her cheek because she's his best friend and he loves her. Noire flushes brilliant red.

              "I will," he says. "Watch for me, huh? I think when I come back, there's going to be banners and a parade and everything!"

              He walks Noire back home with a long description of what "his" return will be like, and she laughs a few times and calls him exciting, and Morgan sees her right to the door. Tharja lets her in with a surly expression and a suspicious narrowing of her eyes to Morgan, whose smile doesn't crack even when Tharja snaps the door shut in his face. 

              He'll try Kjelle next, he decides.

 

* * *

 

              Kjelle isn't too impressed with Morgan's pitch.

              To be fair, it's not any less vague than it had been to Noire, but it is a bit more cloying. Something like: "You know, Kjelle, I could REALLY use your strength right now, and you're the strongest person I know, so uh, want to help?" Something also like: "I know it's hard but I can only tell you if you agree to go! You trust me, right?"

              "Morgan," Kjelle sighs, looking up at him from her place on the ground, where she is practically folding herself in two to reach her toes. Sir Frederick is always complaining about his joints, she'd told him, once. Gotta stay limber. Kjelle says now: "You're going to have a bear of a time convincing me with that. Did anyone else agree?"

              "Who says I asked anyone else?" Morgan says.

              "You wouldn't ask me first," Kjelle says, pointedly.

              "Okay, fine," Morgan concedes. "I asked Noire. She said no, but probably just because of her mom. I haven't asked Brady yet because of Maribelle, and Lucina would rat me out in a heartbeat, and everyone else is either too far to reach right now OR would ask too many questions."

              Kjelle looks up at him through her fine hair, her full lower lip pushed out skeptically. "You don't think I'm going to ask questions?"

              Morgan grins.

              "Well, you haven't said no yet..." he trails.

              Kjelle sighs, reaches her toes once more, and then stretches back out comfortably. She leans back on her hands and looks up at him.

              "The fact that you're hiding this from everyone doesn't really inspire confidence, little squire," she says. That bugs Morgan a little -- he might be a fair bit younger than Lucina, but now that he's fifteen he thinks it's really time that everyone remembered that they're supposed to be his friends, too. He’s not just Lucina's little brother tagging along.

              Oh well. They'll know sooner or later what he's capable of, when he brings Mother home.

              "That's fine," Morgan says, though it's really not. “Do you think Brady would?”

              “Try him anyway,” Kjelle sighs. 

 

* * *

 

               He trusts Brady, but he doesn't trust Brady’s mother. That lady can spot a lie from the very pitch of someone's breath and pry the truth out of Brady faster than he can say "Ma".  Unfortunately, where Brady is, his mother is seldom too far behind –– she’s the type that swoops down on her child and peppers him with little criticisms and praises alike for everything he does. He's sure that when his disappearance is made known, Brady will be singing like a canary if he doesn't come with.

              Still, Morgan has to try.

              “Morgan!” Brady groans as soon as Morgan pokes his head in the doorway to the conservatory. He lowers his violin and brandishes the bow in the air, as if he could swat Morgan out from across the room. “Get out, you’re gonna get me in trouble.”

              “I won’t,” Morgan says. He slinks in, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. “I waited until your mom left.”

              “She’ll be back in five minutes tops,” Brady warns. He refits the violin under his chin but doesn’t start to play again. “And then I’m going to have to practice for another hour because the first will have been _distracted._ ”

              “Your mom’s crazy,” Morgan says. He supposes his mother can be just as crazy –– in entirely different ways, of course, but Maribelle didn’t stick a sword in her own doppelganger’s chest. “But five minutes is enough! I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me on a trip.”

              “A trip?” Brady repeats. “Where?”

              “I don’t really know yet,” Morgan replies. Being even more vague than that hadn’t helped with Noire and Kjelle, so might as well try a new tactic. “But it’s really important, and we’d leave today.”

              “Shit,” Brady says. “I don’t think Ma would like that.”

              “Don’t tell her, then,” Morgan says. “Want to? You can’t seriously want to sit here practicing violin when you can go on an adventure.”

              Brady scoffs and lowers the violin. He pauses to itch the back of his neck with his bowhand, and he heaves a heavy sigh.

“Here’s the thing,” Brady says. “I actually _like_ playing, even if Ma can be a real slavedriver… and you’re not exactly puttin’ forth any justification for pissin’ her off.”

              Morgan can’t imagine why. He sighs and sits in the chair across from his friend, who can’t seem to reach the itch and thus resorts to using the bow itself.

              “Okay,” Morgan says. “I’m going on an adventure to find my Mother. She’s alive again, see, and––“

              Brady sighs louder than the last, cutting Morgan right off. He says: “Lucina said you’d try this.”

              “What?”

              “She said you’d come ‘round eventually trying to plan some adventure,” Brady says. “I mean… I wasn’t supposed ta tell you that part. I wouldn’t have said yes either way, but if you want to pester anyone, pester her.”

              Morgan feels a sinking in his stomach. It’s not altogether unsurprising –– Lucina does command a great deal of their friends’ respect, even if it often feels they’re her friends instead of his –– but it stings nonetheless.

              “She has you all ready to say no to me if I ask?” Morgan asks, disheartened.

              “Well… that’s harsh, but yeah,” Brady says. “Aww, jeez, don’t take it personally, Morgan, I would have considered it if she hadn’t gotten to me first.”

              “How long?” Morgan asks.

              “Huh?”

              “When did she tell you that?” he asks.

              “Yesterday,” Brady says. He scoffs. “Her timing, man… it’s like she knew.”

              Morgan sits there a moment staring, trying to suss it out. How could Lucina know what he’s planning? How could she warn their friends, too?

              “Look man, just don’t take it personally,” Brady says. He gestures at Morgan with the bow. “She’s just lookin’ out for ya. We all are.”

              “I better go before your mom comes back,” Morgan replies, standing up again. “Don't tell Lucina we talked.”

              Brady sighs once more.

              “Don’t be mad, man.”

              “I’m not,” Morgan replies, and off he goes.

              He’ll go alone if he needs to. It never stopped Mother from doing great things, after all –– she didn’t tell anyone of her plans, not even him. If his friends won’t help him bring her home, then he’ll do it without them.

 

* * *

 

              He says goodbye to Ryn first. He doesn’t generally visit the nursery, as the life of a baby princess is equal parts boring and disinteresting to Morgan, but on a day like today, where his father is hidden away in meetings and his sister is off welcoming her boyfriend back to the city after a long journey, Morgan at least appreciates how easy she is to find. The nursery is always sunny and warm, all pastel blues and soft golds, and the nurses in matching white pinafores are always happy to see Morgan. They never knew him as a baby, obviously, but they seem to like to pretend they did.

              When Mother returns, maybe they will know another baby. A little boy, just like he was.

              Once left alone with her, Morgan leans over the crib. The railing is so tall that it bites into his ribs, but he scoops Ryn up by her underarms. She squeals and reaches her stubby fingers for him, babbling away in baby talk, and Morgan holds her up for a moment to look at her.

              "I'm sorry I can't take you with me," Morgan tells her, and then he clasps her to his chest. She is precious, putting her face right up to his and sticking a hand on his mouth. He laughs, unwittingly. "I'm trying to be serious!”

              (Bless anyone who tries to be serious with a baby.)

              "I bet you want Mother back as much as Luci and I," he says. "But you're too little and it's too dangerous.”

              He kisses the top of her head and she gurgles and coos.

              “Morgan?”

              Morgan almost startles, but when he turns to the doorway he sees it is only Aunt Lissa and Sumia. Aunt Lissa looks fit to burst, but Morgan can’t be sure if it’s a real risk or if she just looks that way –– she’s the only pregnant lady he’s ever spent time around. 

              “Hi, Aunt Lissa,” Morgan says.

              “What brings you up here?” she asks, smiling. She waddles to the crib and holds out her arms for Ryn, who Morgan passes over immediately. “And Ryn! I hope you’re ready to be a big girl, because you’re going to be evicted real soon!”

 _Oh yeah,_ Morgan realizes. _There’ll be a new baby in the nursery._

              “Where’s Ryn going to be?” he asks.

              “One of the spare room off of Chrom’s,” Aunt Lissa says. “They’ve been redecorating it all week. Poor Chrom, he’s so tired –– at breakfast this morning he said the noise has been keeping him up.”

              Morgan realizes his father’s lie, but he doesn’t want to point it out, so he just nods.

              “Speaking of my father,” Morgan says, “do you know where he is right now?”

              “Oh,” Sumia says, brightly. “We just saw him to the courtroom for the Plegia decision.”

              “Thanks,” Morgan replies. He turns to go. “See you around, Aunt Lissa, Sumia.”

              “Morgan, don’t interrupt them, okay?” Aunt Lissa calls, but Morgan doesn’t pay her much heed. He’s not going to be able to wait until his father is done, so it’s interfering or not saying goodbye at all. He doesn’t respond to his Aunt, already lost in thought, so he barely hears her call after him: “Morgan!”

              Morgan doesn’t even look back. He’s already in the hall and jogging towards the courtroom, heart set. He won’t really be saying goodbye — he’s quite sure Father would be furious if he so much as suggested he’d be going off somewhere and not coming back until he has Mother again. He’ll have to find a way to word it, then.

              Maybe he’ll just say that he’s going on a ride, the long ones he used to take with Owain and Cynthia, before they saddled up and joined the army. Father would be happy to hear that, and maybe Morgan could pretend it’s the reaction he’s getting to his plan.

              The courtroom doors are heavy and ornate, solid wood twelve feet high with metalwork bolted to the surface, and it takes Morgan two hands to open it. The great hinges creak and he slips in.

              His father is sitting at his chair, leant against an armrest with a paper in his hand. He is looking at it very studiously, his eyebrows are knitted together in concentration, but his mouth is notably downturned. The rest of the room is gathered around him, all focused intently on their Exalt. They speak to him in loud voices, sometimes overlapping with each other, but their Exalt seldom responds. Maribelle is perched on a chair nearby, her quill moving rapidly and occasionally saying something to Father in a hushed, unheard tone.

              And then her sharp eyes land on Morgan. She seems to pause midsentence, and Morgan watches his father look up from the papers, follow her gaze, and then fix his eyes right on his interrupting son.

              “Hello,” Morgan says.

              "Morgan," his father says, tired but trying to be soft. "Can it wait, kiddo? I'm in the middle of something."

              Morgan realizes how silent the room suddenly is, and that every pair of eyes is on him. Most of them are unamused and serious, even impatient with the intrusion. Even Maribelle seems put-off by his intrusion, her scowl a perfect match to Brady's. 

              "Oh, sorry," Morgan says. "I just wanted to say I’m going for a ride."

              And goodbye, for now.

              “That’s nice. I’ll see you at dinner, okay?" Father says. 

              "Milord, at the rate this meeting is going, there won't be dinner," Maribelle scolds.

              Father sighs.

              "I know," he says, somewhat tightly. "Morg, another time, okay?"

              "Okay," Morgan agrees, but he doesn't move quite yet. Instead he looks at his father and he hopes, inwardly, that he isn't too cross when he finds out Morgan’s plan. That could be less than a day from now, when Morgan doesn’t come home and someone shakes down Kjelle or Noire or Brady.

              Or Lucina.

              Maribelle heaves a sigh suddenly, and she storms over to Morgan and places her hands very firmly on his shoulders. She steers him towards the door, each step tempestuous.  "Run along," she prompts him, marching him right out into the hall, and then she pats him very neatly on the head and closes the door on him. There's a click when she bolts the door.

              Morgan still stands there a moment, listening.

              "No more interruptions!" Maribelle announces, muffled by the door but no less commanding. "We must have a decision on Plegia, Lord Exalt –– whatever your will is, it will be done."

              Morgan heaves a sigh to himself, but he still feels a lightness and a hope that just yesterday had felt much dimmer. Now all that's left is to pack, and off he'll go.

 

* * *

 

 

              Mother’s old coat hangs in his closet.

              There had been a time where he had worn it every day. Since the moment he’d been found shivering and alone in that old crumbling fortress at the crux of time, it had been his –– Mother had taken it from her own shoulders and wrapped it around his to stave off the cold, and when he’d protested that she would be cold instead, she had laughed and simply done up the buttons for him.

              “Nonsense,” she’d said, later, when he’d tried to return it. “I have another in the convoy.”

              And so she had –– her splendid Grandmaster coat, the one with the filigreed epaulettes and the endless yards of gold embroidery, the one she’d seldom worn for reasons Morgan had never asked. Since the day they found him, she’d worn that new coat instead.

              She’d stopped wearing it when she vanished. Morgan remembers watching it disintegrate into light along with her body, remembers his father dully asking Frederick if they could please, please just check one last time around the foothills of Origin Peak in case it had survived and blown somewhere.

              Morgan had stopped wearing her old coat sometime around then, too. His father had ordered him to hang it up a week after she’d vanished. _Why?_ Morgan asked. 

              “I really need to not think about your mother for a bit,” his father had replied. “I can't do the things your mother would want me to do for the realm if I'm always missing her.”

              Morgan had stomped and shouted and cried, but he’d agreed for his father’s sake. He didn’t want his father to be sad anymore. Whether it had made much of a difference, Morgan doesn’t know, but he likes to think it did. Otherwise, what would the point have been?

              Now, though, Morgan pulls the coat from its hanger. He pulls it on and it feels like it did the last day he wore it, the shoulders too loose and the hem slightly too long but the hood just right. He’d always refused to have it tailored down, just so that he could grow into it.

              When he finds Mother, wherever she is, he wants her to see that he never forgot her. Not even for a minute.

              With the coat’s hem floating at his heels, Morgan crosses his room to get his travelling boots from the trunk at the foot of the bed. The rest of his things are already scattered across his bed, prepared to be shoved in a satchel as soon as he has it all in order.

              "Morgan?"

              Morgan whirls around to see Lucina in his doorway, watching him with some alarm. _Shoot,_ he thinks. 

              “What are you doing?" Lucina asks. And then, before he can reply, she says in a tone that Morgan can't really decipher: "Morgan, are you going after Mother?"

              Morgan freezes up. He loves his sister, but she loves their father most of all. She'd tell him in a heartbeat, and somehow, she’d anticipated this.

              "No," he says, quickly. He turns his back on her again, because he's a terrible liar and he -- in mother's words -- hasn't yet grown into his convictions. He forgets the boots and shoves a tome in his satchel. "I'm just going for a ride with Noire."

              Lucina doesn't say anything, and when Morgan is terrified that she might just walk away and tell on him, he chances a look back at her. She's staring at him with something soft in her eyes, and a set to her jaw. If there's anything Morgan can say to describe the look on her face, it's the word "epiphany." Just that. She knows exactly what he's doing, and maybe thensome.

              She asks: “Do you _want_ to go find Mother?"

              Morgan scowls. She’s asked him this so many times and it’s only ever been to confirm his position –– she does that, _plotting,_ though she’d still never call herself a tactician If he weren’t feeling betrayed he might have played along softly, but as it is, all he can do is scoff.

              “Did Brady tell you?” he says. “Or Kjelle?” Noire wouldn’t.

              “I haven’t spoken with Brady or Kjelle in a few days,” Lucina says, pointedly. “But I’m guessing you did…”

              Morgan looks away from her for a moment, frustrated.

              “So are you testing me or something?" he asks.

              Lucina shakes her head, one single, serious motion. Morgan climbs up off his knees, and his mother's old coat weighs a ton on his skinny shoulders.

              "Answer me," Lucina says. "Do you want to?"

              "Yes," he says, immediately. "I do."

              "Then pack an extra tome for me," Lucina says. "I'll ready some horses as discreetly as I can. We'll leave in a few hours."

              Morgan gapes.

              " _Really?_ " he says.

              Lucina nods.

              “But Father..." Morgan trails, but he doesn't want to even make an argument. He strides to her and takes her by the forearms to scruntize her, and he peers into her eyes as though it might tell him something, though it never does. She watches him, lips pursed. Morgan asks: “Why now?”

              “Because it’s the right time,” Lucina says, carefully.

              Good enough for him.

              "Okay," he says. And then, a little stunned: "We're going to be in so much trouble."

              Lucina gently brushes off his hands and turns away. She fixes her eyes straight ahead of her, like there’s some sort of magnetic force bidding her in their mother’s direction. She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Morgan wonders if she’s even worried about such a thing.

              "He'll forgive us," Lucina says, quietly. "Pack now, but leave your bags on the balcony; Gerome will pick them up and take them to our meeting point. Meet me in the stables in two hours, okay? Dressed _only_ for a ride, pack everything else.”

              “Right,” Morgan agrees. “Luci, why––“

              But she's already gone.

              Morgan has a million questions, but he feels so righteous that he could burst — he’s right. Lucina must think she’s alive, too, and better, maybe whatever foresight she has means she has more ideas than he does. 

              He shoves an extra tome in the bag and runs around his room seizing knit socks, riding breeches, and a spare pair of gloves, amongst all sorts of other supplies. He is so excited that he doesn't even think to tell Lucina what he knows, or ask what she knows. It doesn't matter.

              All that matters is that they're going to find Mother.

 

* * *

 

               Lucina gets him a horse that is slightly too big, but Morgan guesses it will be hardier for the trip. It’s mildly difficult to get up in the saddle, but he refuses to use a mounting block.

              “Are you sure you want this horse, Prince Morgan?” one of the stableboys asks. “He’s quite big for you.”

              “It’s fine if Lucina picked it,” Morgan says. He feels nervous, suddenly. His own plan had been feeble, though come to think of it, he still hadn’t really devised any plan beyond getting out of Ylisse as soon as possible. Whatever his plan had (or hadn’t) been, he doesn’t want Lucina to know it was weak.

              Hopefully she won’t ask. That’s Lucina, though –– she usually only thinks of her own plans.

              “So wait," Morgan says, as they start across the courtyard towards the gates. "What do YOU know?"

              "If you're having doubts, that's okay," she says. “You can turn back from the meeting place with Gerome."

              “Hey, wait a minute," Morgan says. "This is my idea, if you hadn't found out _my_ plan, I'd be going alone, too! You still have to tell me your side of it.”

              “Keep your voice down,” she says. “As soon as we’re out of Ylisstol, I will tell you everything."

              He trusts her, so he just nods. Lucina looks firmly ahead of her.

              "He's going to be mad at us," Morgan says, quietly. If he turns in the saddle and cranes his neck, he can see their father's balcony, one piece of the large castle that still looms over their heads, even though they are making their way up the street.

              "He'll understand," Lucina replies, and she doesn't look back. Her mouth settles in a firm line. Morgan wishes he could have her resolve — he feels like running back and apologizing already.

              "I know, but..."

              Lucina sighs, not unkindly. She looks to him patiently.

              "I've prepared for this, okay?" she says. "When people start worrying, Gerome will inform our father that we are looking for Frederick and our cousin."

              "I don't think that's going to make him any less mad," Morgan says. “That's not even the direction we're going... Frederick left through the North gate. We're going West."

              "It'll be fine, Morgan," Lucina says.

              Morgan turns to look back one more time, and this time, he sees a distant figure on their father's balcony. He hesitates, and then raises a hand to wave. After a moment, the figure waves back.

              “Please, Morgan," Lucina says, voice emphatic, like she doesn’t want to keep telling him. “He’ll worry less if you don’t act like it’s a goodbye.”

              "I know," he says, and he turns back to look ahead of them.

              He really, really hopes their father understands.

 

* * *

 

               They meet Gerome well into the outskirts of the city, out on some rural farm where the sound of the capital is far, far away. Beyond the farms are empty lands –– rolling hills that stretch into mountains, and Morgan realizes they’re headed into the Western Passage. Though the heat is terrible at this time of day, Morgan feels a chill anyway.

              “Are we going to Plegia Castle?” Morgan asks, concerned.

              “No,” Lucina says. “We’re going to follow Ylisse’s mountains to the South.”

              Morgan opens his mouth to ask more questions, but Lucina is sliding from the saddle. She shoulders her satchel and runs through the long grasses to where Gerome is resting under a tree, sat in the crux of Minerva II’s side. When he sees them coming, he gets to his feet and moves to meet Lucina halfway.

              Lucina doesn't hesitate pull Gerome into a friendly hug when they meet. Neither of them say something, so it’s just the distant call of birds and crickets to fill the endless space around them. Morgan feels a tickle of immaturity too strong to resist: "Yuck," he says. "Get a room!"

              Lucina turns and glowers at him, and she slips from Gerome's arms. Gerome just sighs, his eyebrows knit together, his posture notably more rigid.

              "Not now, Morgan," Lucina says, and she looks up to Gerome. "Thank you for this. I'm sorry I can't have you at my side."

              Gerome nods.

              "I understand your reasons." He pauses. "You have my apologies for questioning your judgment this morning."

              "It's okay," Lucina says.

              Morgan heaves an exaggerated sigh at the two of them, mostly at the way they look at each other: barely-bridled intensity under a durable veneer of professionalism. Blech. He hopes he never gets moony like that. _Ever._

              "We'd best get ready, then," Lucina says, moving away. She goes to the packs and starts unwrapping them, revealing the tight bundle of his traveling clothes and riding leathers.

              "Get dressed," she says to Morgan. 

              She tosses the bundle at him and he catches them, and then she promptly picks up her own and marches away into the deeper grasses, presumably to change where she has privacy.

              So he's left to grumble and change in front of Gerome, abandoning his pressed white shirt and blue trousers for beige jodpurs and a dark tunic. Gerome helps him with his light armor, a leather jerkin and gauntlets that laces in a stubborn way, but he doesn't say a word, he just dutifully laces it tight. It'll be a warm ride in the summer heat, but where they're going, there's always the risk of battle at too short notice to dress.

              "This is going to get sweaty fast," Morgan laughs — it's quiet and there's nothing to stave off the awkwardness of being dressed by Gerome instead of his mother, who had armored him last.

              "Better leathers than steels," Gerome replies, curtly.

              "True," Morgan says. 

              Lucina comes out of the grasses then, dressed in her old Hero-King tunic and dark leggings, but she's replaced the ratty old cape with a splendid white one not terribly unlike their father's. Predictable, Morgan thinks. Less predictably, she has tied her hair back, for once; it is plaited over her shoulder, though the too-short pieces still fall wild around her face.

              "Me next," she says, smoothly, going right to the bundle of her armor as Gerome unpacks it. She inspects it briefly: "The breastplate, the shoulder pauldrons, the greaves and the gauntlets -- that should be enough."

              "Not the plackart?" Gerome says, holding up the waist piece.

              “Take it back with you, it’s miserable to ride in. I’ll just be careful,” Lucina says, and sensibly so. Morgan hopes he'll someday have a beautiful suit of armor like his parents and sister do, but he doesn't envy ever having to actually wear it. He’s happy with his mother’s coat over his leather armor any day.

              Gerome nods and sets it aside. Morgan waits while Gerome armors her; he knows he's going to be the one helping her in and out of it every day for the next few weeks, so he might as well rest on his laurels while he can.

              "Morgan, can you triple-check the packs, please?" Lucina says, impatiently.

              It's going to be a long trip, Morgan realizes, but as he settles amongst the packs to count socks and bed rolls and a single pot, cloaks for potential rain and two sturdy lanterns, amongst a whole mess of other things, he thinks of sitting with Mother and doing just the same. He thinks of how much he's looking forward to seeing her again. The world can throw at him anything it wants -- sweaty armor, mushy sisters, sad fathers and all the omens there are, but he's still excited.

              He's going to see Mother again.

              He opens his satchel to double-check, and next to his tome is the book he had been reading on his birthday, the one he’d almost left in the church pews. _All Farewells Are Sudden._ He must have grabbed it instead of the second tome. Damn. He’s always been somewhat careless with his books, but right before a journey is poor timing. Mother would admonish him for it.

              Morgan doesn’t want Lucina to do the same, so he has half a mind to toss the book in the grass, but instead he just tucks it deeper into his bag and closes the flap again. Mother would scold him for losing books.

              “Are we all ready?” Lucina asks.

              “Yes,” Morgan replies. Lucina breezes by him, surprisingly quiet in armor, and she mounts again. She doesn’t seem to have any more goodbyes for Gerome, which Morgan is thankful for. 

              Morgan, however, looks back at Gerome once he is in the saddle.

              “Thanks for everything,” Morgan says. “And tell my father that I’m sorry, okay?”

              Gerome nods, slowly.

              “If you find mine,” he says, “tell him the same.”

              “Tell him sorry?” Morgan asks.

              Gerome shrugs uncomfortably, as though he doesn’t really care or hadn’t actually meant that. Morgan feels a little sore for him, suddenly, but Gerome just shakes his head.

              “Nevermind,” he says.

              Morgan isn’t sure what to say to that, so he just nods, and nudges his horse’s sides to catch up with Lucina.

 

* * *

 

               That night, just before Lucina agrees to finally tell him what her plan is, Morgan remembers something about Mother.

              "Mother," Morgan remembers pleading. "I can't find my book!"

              "You have a lot of books," she'd replied, absently. "Perhaps a maid picked it up and put it on a shelf where it belonged."

              Morgan had sighed heavily and butted his forehead against her ribs.

              "I looked! I can't find it, and I was almost done... how do I find something lost in this huge stupid castle?"

              His mother had laughed, reaching to pet his hair. She'd looked down at him warmly, and she had smoothed his hair down to the nape of his neck, holding him so that he must look at her.

              “It's not _lost,_ Morgan. It's in the last place you'll look," she'd replied, a hint of a tease on her voice.

              It had taken him a second, but he'd groaned and laughed.

              "Of course! Why would I keep looking after I found it?" he had said. "That's not very helpful, though."

              "Keep looking, then," she'd admonished. "Either that or wait for it to fall into your lap someday, when you least expect it."

              She'd given him a squeeze, then, one-armed but fond enough for two. In the present day, Morgan can feel her absence so tensely that the silence between him and his sister even seems a little eerie. The conversation had been innocuous, but it takes on an ominous tone now. 

              What had waiting done for his book? Even today it bugs him, wondering what had happened in those last chapters.

              She's in the last place he will look, that's for sure.

              “Okay,” Morgan says to Lucina, firmly. “What’s the plan?”

              Lucina looks at him from across the campfire, her face pale, her nose sunburnt. The Parallel Falchion is laid across her lap, though they haven’t seen hide nor hair of a Risen the entire way. It's like a safety blanket. Morgan wonders if she held it like that the whole time she travelled the world alone, in those lonely years he'd heard.

              “We’re going to the house Mother grew up in,” she says.

              Morgan pauses.

              “What house?” he asks. “There’s a _house?_ ”

              “The one with the flowers in the windowboxes,” Lucina says.

              Morgan gapes. Lucina just lowers her eyes and smiles.


	6. A Ghost from the Tomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there is one thing Frederick is sure of, it's that he is dutiful and devoted to his lord. And if there is anything he knows about the future, it's that he will either bring this woman home to her lord husband, or else he will vanquish this impostor before she can bring harm to the Exalt. Unfortunately, both her identity and her proposed adventure prove to be a considerable test of faith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last!

.

 

 

                “We’ll _talk_ ,” she says.

                Owain stands firm at first, but he lowers his sword. In that instant, Frederick swears he sees sheepishness on the young man’s face, _just_ when he looks back to the Stranger. Cynthia releases his lance, though she stays close.

                Frederick’s loosens his grip, just slightly, but he does not lower the lance. He thinks to, but the Stranger is breathing hard, like she's panicking. Since when did Ada ever panic?

                “You too, Frederick,” the Stranger says. She raises her hands in peace, and then glances aside, to where Cherche is. “Cherche, please. Call him off.”

                Frederick doesn’t dare look back at his wife’s reaction –– the Stranger’s exasperation says it all. The Stranger doesn’t seem deterred, however, and then she takes a bold step forward, raising a hand to reach for his horse's bridle.

                No one touches his horse, and so Frederick doesn't even hesitate.

                He turns his lance in his hand and brings the butt of it up in a broad slash, a tight nudge of his heels spurring his horse forward. Cynthia and Owain dive aside so they don't end up underneath hooves, but the Stranger doesn't flinch. The Stranger is fast, and she brings her hand up sharply, palm open, fingers spread wide. 

                She disappears under his horse's head just in time for Cherche to shout from behind him: _"Frederick!"_

                He feels himself airborne, hears his horse bray — _scream_.

                And then he's on his back, and everything goes black.

* * *

 

_Chrom reaches for him with outstretched arms, and Frederick stoops to pick him up. It's something he does by rote now: the little prince beckons, and Frederick doesn't even think. He just scoops him up, like a well-trained soldier._

_It's the prince's fourth birthday today, and it will be a strange one. His parents have been dead and buried for a whole month now. He's too young to really understand it, but even if the first inklings tug at his little mind on this very day, he'll forget before long. It might even be a blessing –– he’ll be too young to miss them, and it won’t feel like loss, just absence._

_“Dear prince," Frederick says, shifting Chrom to one arm and balancing him against his hip, "as of today you are too old to be carried about the castle."_

_"I don' think so!" the boy squeals, but he'll grow bossy before long, as most boys do. He giggles. “You have to carry me forever!"_

_“If that is what my service demands, so be it,” Frederick says. He makes a policy of never arguing with the children. “For now, though, lunch is waiting for you."_

_Frederick strides across the room and out the door. Chrom just rests his little chin on Frederick’s shoulder, fat fingers wound into Frederick’s upper arm, and he watches his room vanish at the top of the stairs as Frederick carries him dutifully away from his room. It's his new room, now that baby Lissa is in the nursery._

_"Freddick?" Chrom asks._

_"Yes, child?" Frederick replies._

_"Do you have kids?" he asks._

_"No."_

_"My nurses all have kids."_

_"I am not a nurse."_

_Chrom pauses._

_"How come I never met them?"_

_Frederick feels he should laugh and take pleasure in this child's burgeoning curiosity, but he doesn't. There's nothing to laugh about at all. He says: ”Your nurses are all old women, and their babies are grown and... gone."_

_"Oh," Chrom replies, and there's a little wonder in his voice, as this had likely never occurred to him before. He sits back in Frederick’s grip to look at him, with bright blue eyes and a little pluck to his lower lip. “Where do they go?"_

_Frederick feels a little curl of fear. Just the thought makes him feel as though he is welcoming home the dead all over again. All of his boyhood friends had marched off to the war and they were gone. He should have been amongst them, but he'd been given this_ honour _of stewardship over the royal children, and perhaps..._

_Chrom looks at him expectantly._

_He starts to say something, anything, to explain where people go when they live in a wretched halidom such as this one._

_“Well, child, you see––“_

_Frederick feels a jerk in his spine, and his voice catches on his throat as he feels his boot slide on some errant pebble or some-such on the stairs. All he can do is clutch his young charge to his side and hope he is not injured in the fall, he must–– he must not––_

_He falls._

* * *

 

                He wakes up to a breeze on his face, and the sun beating down on his eyelids. For a moment his body betrays him, and he can only blearily look up at his wife, who is standing over him and looking down at him with some concern. His head is at her feet, and the grass under him makes for a very thin cushion between him and the rocky hill.

                Every inch of him aches, though save his back it’s all _mental_ , like his nerves are frayed. Dark magic does that, and he knows, immediately, that it _was_ dark magic. There’s nothing in the world as personal as dark magic, nothing else that can stick you in dark places until you're too weak to lift a sword.

                Thinking of that, the haze starts to clear.

                "What on earth happened?” he asks, dimly, and then he remembers quite quickly, so he sits bolt upright. "Where is she?!"

                "Be calm," Cherche warns him. "You fell."

                He turns on his seat regardless, looking around. Owain is sitting some feet away, frowning, Mistletainn across his lap. Cynthia is up the hill, standing with Frederick's horse, petting its muzzle absently — his horse seems unnerved but unharmed.

                Frederick tries to sit up more but his stomach turns and he ends up twisting to the side to dry heave. There’s nothing but bile at the back of his throat, and he coughs on it for a moment, feeling older than ever. Cherche is standing over him protectively, but with an axe in-hand, she's not about to reach for him with any comfort.

                “Frederick,” she says, “you need to _breathe_.”

                "I knew we were dealing with some dark mage," he says, low on his breath.

                "Dirty trick, I know," the Stranger says. Frederick turns to look at her, his arms braced at his sides. She looks down at him with her long hair in her face, her chin high, and Frederick watches Cherche tense.

                His head aches. He feels cold and clammy all over, and anxious -- when he sits forward, he feels the bile rise again at the back of his throat and he has to cough it back. Dark magic is his worst anxieties, his deepest panics -- there's a pounding in his head that makes it hard to sit up straight.

                "We _are_ willing to talk," Cherche says to the Stranger, still standing over Frederick defensively. She's cross under that cool veneer. Frederick watches Cherche adjust her grip on the axe one-handed, her arm hard like stone. The Stranger doesn't even flinch, though both Cynthia and Owain make small noises of concern.

                "You might be," the Stranger says, "but I could tell _he_ wasn't. I'm sorry, Cherche, but dark magic was the only way I was going to stop him without actually hurting him."

                “A strategic choice, if not a fair one,” Cherche replies. “I wonder what you would do if I took an axe to you.”

                The Stranger doesn't seem even remotely interested in retaliating further -- she just watches them, looking both relieved and apprehensive at once.

                “I’m not so good with axes,” the Stranger laughs. “But you’re worse with magic than he is, so it’s all relative.”

                "I know," Cherche says. She pauses. "I think Ada would do that. I think she'd even strike Frederick, if he swung at her."

                Frederick watches her grip ease, her axe lowered. Frederick wishes Cherche wouldn't let her guard down so obviously, but then again, Cherche is possessed with a confidence he sometimes lacks.

                The Stranger smiles a little.

                "I would," she says. "Seeing as I _am_ Ada."

                "You'll forgive me, then, if I have some doubts," Cherche replies. "Your letter was troubling, to say the least."

                Frederick tries to push down the feeling that he might hurl, to sit straighter, to interject: "Doubts are an understatement."

                The Stranger sighs.

                "Just rest, Frederick," she implores him, exasperated. “The choice to come after me wasn’t very tactically sound, you know.”

                “Not tactically sound?” Frederick replies.

                “That’s right. If you really thought I was a threat, why bring _two_ people so ill fitted to take on a mage?"

                It's a peculiar feeling, to have her lay into him the way Ada liked to. She crouches down to his level, elbows rested on her knees. This close, there’s no mistaking that she looks just like a perfect doppelgänger for Ada.

                "I know this is hardly helping me convince you of anything," the Stranger says, a sigh on her breath, "but I hope you understand my reasons. I don't want to fight with you, Frederick, and I know you don't really want to fight with me."

                “You're right," Frederick replies, curtly. "You haven't convinced me of anything."

                “Well, instead of fighting, why don't we settle you in our camp and talk a bit?" she offers. She offers him a hand and he ignores it. "Like allies. No weapons, no armor, no magic."

                "No," Frederick says. "I'll speak to the children first. I've had quite enough of you for one afternoon."

                The Stranger gives a huff of a laugh, blowing her bangs out of her face in the process.

                "It's been a while since I've heard that," she says. "But okay."

                "Dark magic," he grouses. But he has to admit she hits like Ada — it wouldn't be the first time she'd hit him, though it'd be the first time outside of a sparring match. Cool. Efficient. Impersonal.

                "You have terrible magic defense, that's on you," she says, and she sighs despite her smile. "I thought you'd be happy to see me again."

                "Someone has—"

                "To be the voice of reason," she interjects. "I know."

                Frederick doesn't want to hear it. He pushes himself to his feet with some difficulty. He wobbles once, and then starts walking. His back protests, but he straightens up and ignores it.

                "Owain!" he barks. "With me."

                Owain gets up reluctantly, but once he's up, he moves with more confidence. Frederick watches him took to the Stranger, and then to Cynthia, and their expressions speak volumes. With a raised chin, Owain follows Frederick down the hill.

                "Cherche," Frederick calls.

                "I'll mind her," she replies.

                "Thank you," he says, and off they go.

                Back down the hill is the only direction out of earshot, so Frederick leads his errant student away from camp with a fire in his gut and his fists at his sides. Owain slips ahead of him near the foot of the hill, moving right into the trees, and then he takes a very deep, obvious breath and turns.

                “Sir Frederick!” Owain says, immediately. “I believe I understand your quarrel with the Lady Ada but I did not imagine you would leap to such cruelties––“

                “Quiet,” Frederick replies, swift and curt, and Owain’s mouth hangs open. “Even assuming I believe her, this behavior is extremely unbecoming of a duke of Ylisse. Why did you walk away from your post, instead of immediately informing us of who you had found?"

                Owain looks altogether taken off-guard by this question, and Frederick feels some dull surprise where he should just be angry. Did it really not occur to him that informing his uncle was an _option_?

                "She forbade it," Owain says, finally.

                "And what authority does she have, to make an order like that?" Frederick demands. "You were granted your post by the Exalt; his orders come before all else."

                Owain pauses. He seems to scrub his brain for an answer, running a hand through his dark hair awkwardly.

                “Well… she’s the _Queen_ , isn’t she?”

                “Not until she has a crown on her head,” Frederick says pointedly.

                Owain just shakes his head.

                “Sir Frederick, if you just _speak_ to her in good faith, I am sure that all of this strife is naught but a misunderstanding,” he says. “Truly, I wished I could fly to Ylisse and share the great news, but I respected her wishes. The poem was all I could send.”

                “Then explain this poem," Frederick says, even though he could not care less about it at this very moment. “What were we meant to learn from it?”

                Owain brightens slightly.

                "Cynthia suggested it," he says. "Auntie didn't want us to send a message at all, but we insisted. We wanted to let our families know we were in good spirits, and perhaps suggest Auntie's return, even if we couldn’t tell them in as many words.”

                "Pardon me?" Frederick says. This is the most absurd thing he’s heard all day, and yet it’s completely predictable from Owain.

                "Like a child from the womb," Owain says, "she is reborn. And like a ghost from the tomb, she was presumed to be dead. You see? Does it not make sense?”

                Frederick sighs.

                “We assumed it was you just being your… _poetic self,_ Owain,” he says. “Though I suppose, yes. It seems quite clear to me now.”

                Under the beautiful summer skies and with nary another soul around for countless miles, Frederick can certainly see how a poem about bucolic skies and rolling clouds might feel fitting to a woman adventuring under them, newly reborn. Still, poetry and the nuances of rebirth isn’t why he is here.

                He’s here to bring them home.

                “Is it true she is headed to a house?” Frederick asks, impatiently. "The house she grew up in?"

                “Yes,” Owain says. He doesn’t elaborate, even when Frederick gives him a pointed look. In fact, he seems to take a good deal of pride in being so secretive, what with the way he is trying not to smile.

                "Is there more she is forbidding you to say?" Frederick asks. He has to hand it to her — while fortune had put such pliable allies in her hands, she certainly knew how to play them to her best opportunity.

                "Yes, sir," Owain says. "I swore an oath to her, an oath in blood! And an oath to the woman who slayed the Fell Dragon –– that’s the greatest oath a man could take!”

                Gods, he can just imagine it — the Stranger dressing the moment with pomp and grandeur, having them swear it with their hands over their hearts and recite some oath. 

                "Unacceptable," Frederick just says. "Completely unacceptable.”

                "Sir Frederick," he says, "I trust her. Speak with her a little more, and you will trust her too.”

                Frederick turns and starts back up the hill.

                “We’ll see about that,” he says.

* * *

 

                Despite having not been gone for long, by time Frederick and Owain return to camp, the Stranger, Cherche and Cynthia have begun setting up a picnic lunch. Though the rumble in his stomach could just be unease and discomfort, it could equally be hunger, and by time Frederick grudgingly takes a spot in the grass, the spread of fruit and biscuits and chickpeas and salted meats looks somewhat appetizing. Cherche sits by him, and she passes around a bottle of wine.

                This is not what he expected when he set out from Ylisse.

                The Stranger holds out a bag of berries to Frederick, and he hesitates to take them.

                “Gods, Frederick,” she says, a touch impatient. “I haven’t poisoned them.”

                He takes the bag, but he doesn’t eat. Owain gives him a sidelong look, and Frederick is not sure what it’s supposed to mean –– it’s just one of those Owain looks, exaggerated and theatric.

                “If you’re not going to have them, pass them there,” Cynthia pipes up after a moment, so Frederick does, and Cynthia leans right across Owain’s lap to take it.

                “Well, this is awkward,” Cherche says, because no one is talking otherwise.

                Frederick watches the Stranger smile tensely. It’s a mirror image of Ada’s painting, the wedding one that Chrom broods over all the time. The Stranger doesn’t hold his look, though. She focuses on the spread before them, passing out foods before settling in one spot with a single piece of dried meat, which she picks at.

                “I could tell a story,” Owain says. 

                “No way! If we're done being awkward, I want to hear about what’s going on at home,” Cynthia interjects. She looks to Frederick, and then, seeming to sense his disinterest in regaling them with such stories, she looks to Cherche. “How are things?”

                “Tense around the castle, given the politics and Plegia, but peacetime has done us all some good,” Cherche replies. “All your friends have been coming and going constantly on missions in service to the Exalt, and those still at home are busy with studies or training.”

                “Yeah, I miss letters from them,” Cynthia says. “Severa especially, she wrote me every week but since we left, they can’t reach us. Morgan, too.”

                Frederick watches the Stranger’s eyes flick to Cherche.

                “Did you tell them that you were leaving, dear?” Cherche asks.

                “I couldn’t,” Cynthia admits. “Auntie didn’t… well, Auntie didn’t want us to make anyone worry.”

                She trails off, also looking to the Stranger. Frederick notes the name but no one questions it.

                “We all worried a great deal the moment we heard,” Cherche says. “Your mothers are quite upset, and your fathers too… I've never seen Lon'qu so worked up.”

                Cynthia nods. Owain looks a good deal sheepish.

                "Well, we will be home in some weeks," Owain says. "Their worries won't be long for this world."

                “How are my children?” the Stranger pipes up.

                Cherche looks to Frederick. He would know better, and of course he does, but he does not feel the same inclination to share that his wife does. After all, he does not entirely trust that they’re _her_ children. Cherche, however, doesn't take mercy and answer this time.

                “Missing their mother,” he replies, pointedly.

                The Stranger’s smile grows even more tense.

                “I miss them too,” she says. “I’m really looking forward to seeing them again.”

                “So why aren’t you making for Ylisse immediately?” Frederick asks.

                The Stranger doesn’t reply. Cynthia makes a face and Owain frowns. There’s a notable tension around the entire circle, and Cherche moves her hand subtly to his knee and gives him a none-too-subtle look.

                “Frederick,” she says. “Let’s just break bread together, and leave that conversation to when we’re all rested a little.”

                “Very well,” Frederick says, but the mood is thoroughly soured. The rest of their lunch passes in silence.

* * *

 

                “We were supposed to pack up and keep moving this afternoon,” Cynthia says, perplexed, her hands on her hips as she surveys the camp. “But you’ve kind of thrown an axe in that plan…”

                Frederick still feels he was right to –– after all, there’s no point in continuing towards any house when Ylisse is calling them. Still, Cherche has counseled him to uphold peace, and though he is overwhelmed with worries about what he should tell his Lord and what Lord Chrom might think of this all, he knows she’s right. He must approach this whole affair with a level head.

                Lord Chrom has scarcely been a topic of discussion, today, which he thinks odd –– he’s standing this close to Lord Chrom’s supposed wife, after all, watching her consult a map and deftly avoid conversing with him. It’s a little bit funny, how much she busies herself with Owain and Cynthia, when Ada had always only ever been _politely_ interested in the children. She’d certainly not been all that close to her nephew, but this woman seems quite keen on being “Auntie” to both children, even to the point of ignoring all else.

                But if anything, shouldn’t that be an indication to Owain and Cynthia that something is surely amiss?

                “Frederick,” Cherche says, “stop staring, you’re going to burn a hole through her head if you keep that up.”

                Frederick dutifully looks to his wife instead, leaving the Stranger to her idle chitchat with the children. 

                “She hasn’t even asked about Lord Chrom,” Frederick says.

                Cherche purses her lips, absently continuing to dry the dishes, one tin cup after another.

                “Perhaps she doesn’t want to discuss him with either of us,” she says.

                “Or perhaps she knows that her ruse would crumble in front of us,” Frederick replies, pointedly. He plunges his hands into the dishwater again, working out his frustrations even when there isn’t much to wash at all. “The children wouldn’t know, but we would. _I_ would.”

                Cherche shrugs her shoulders.

                “I don’t know, my love,” she says. “It’s hard to believe it isn’t her.”

                And then she nods in the Stranger’s direction, because the Stranger is approaching them. 

                “We don't need your help with the dishes,” Frederick says.

                “I can see that,” she says. She stops somewhat short of them, her hands buried in her pockets. “I just wanted to apologize for hitting you earlier. I probably could have de-escalated things a little better.”

                Frederick withdraws his hands from the dishwater and clutches the sides of the washbin just to have something to do with his hands. He stares her down for a moment.

                “I accept your apology,” he says, but he doesn’t have anything else to say to her after that, so for a moment they just look at each other.

                “Do you want to know why I haven’t asked about Chrom?” she asks.

                Of course she’d listened. Of course.

                “Yes,” Frederick says. “I would, actually.”

                “Because I knew you’d doubt my sincerity no matter what I said,” she replies. “And I don’t really want to ask questions about how my husband’s doing after my 'death' and be judged for it.”

                Frederick sees Cherche smile at him out of the corner of his eye, so he looks at her and frowns. Her smile doesn’t even flicker.

                “She’s not wrong,” Cherche says, a little apologetic.

                “Go on, then,” Frederick says to the Stranger. “Ask whatever you’d like, and I will keep an open mind.”

                The Stranger pauses for a moment to collect herself, and Frederick tries not to scruntize even that. Ada never much liked judgement, he realizes, and whether he likes it or not, she would have no reason to be vulnerable with him after the way he greeted her. How he greeted the _Stranger._

                “Alright. When I stepped in front of Chrom, to kill Grima myself,” the Stranger says, softly. "He fell to avoid striking me. He tore his arm open on Grima's scales. Is he okay?"

                Frederick thinks to argue, but he can't. He turns to look at her, and he finds her watching him with concern. 

                "His arm recovered," Frederick replies.

                She nods, just once.

                "Good," she says. "Did it leave a scar?”

                "Not much of one," Frederick says, though it's not true. It had left a sizeable scar, but it was minute compared to the scar left by Ada's own disappearance. Even more minute compared to the scar Ada had left deliberately, the white flash of a magic thunderbolt.

                She doesn't say anything. Frederick caves and asks, a little clipped: "Do you remember that, or did the children tell you?"

                The Stranger smiles a touch, then.

                "Frederick, you knew what I was planning," she says. "Could Owain or Cynthia say I went into that battle intending to sacrifice myself?"

                "It's not a difficult leap, given who you are," Frederick says. "Anyone could guess what you would do."

                "Right," she agrees, "what _I_ would do."

                And he realizes, right there, that perhaps he _can_ believe it’s her. She waits for him to respond, tense and patient, and Frederick sighs.

                “Ada,” he agrees, and despite his doubts, it feels like weight melting off his shoulders. She chuckles and reaches for his hand to give him a brief squeeze. “So, with that matter settled, and everyone safe, we will make for home, then?”

                “No,” Ada says. “We’re staying our course.”

                Frederick can’t believe his ears. He's barely processed that it really is her, and the implications it has for them all––

                “You mean to leave your husband in the dark, and continue on?”

                “Yes.”

                “Why?”

                Ada just looks at him.

                “Because I’m going to my mother’s house.”

                Frederick finds himself at an unamusing juxtaposition: he loathes this response, yet her consternation is so utterly true to character that he feels all that much more confident that it _is_ her.

                “Gods, Ada," he says, low and serious. “Is that really important right now? I swore to myself that if it were you, I'd drag you back to Ylisstol if need be. What possesses you to write such a letter and refuse to come home? Don’t you know how much it has hurt him to _miss_ you?”

                All his concerns start spilling out. He barrels on: "And your children! Morgan and Lucina are both still grieving, their father can hardly keep up with them –– and Ryn! Ryn grows bigger by the day, all without her mother."

                Her jaw sets, and she lifts her chin.

                "I have refused nothing," Ada replies, but there is a _light_ in her eyes at talk of her children, even if she doesn’t change the subject. "I said I'd be home in weeks, didn't I? Why did you even _come_ , knowing I'd be back?"

                "And what was I to do if you never arrived, and your nephew and his girl never returned either?" Frederick demands. He straightens up.

                "I _think,_ " Ada says, sharply, _slowly,_ "that I have long earned your trust."

                "Nonsense," Frederick says.

                Ada draws herself up to her full height, and though Frederick is still undoubtably larger, she’s always carried herself with such indignant confidence that he feels he could use a few more inches.

                “Nonsense?” she repeats.

                “Why would I trust you?” Frederick asks, sharper still but carefully ruled. “You _know_ why my trust in you is so brittle.”

                Ada opens her mouth to reply, but she says nothing. She just looks at him hard and shakes her head, ponytail wagging and eyes low. 

                “Point taken," she says. "But my strategy has always worked, whether you trust me or not. You have never had any qualms with my strategy."

                Frederick scoffs. He has no argument there, and no hope in making one.

                “Perhaps you could tell me, then," he says, "what the point of this strategy is. What strategy does leaving your husband and children in the dark serve?”

                “I need to sort out my affairs,” Ada replies, curtly.

                “Your _affairs_ are in Ylisse,” he says. "And I'm taking you home."

                In that moment, he’s pushed her too far. She’s firm on her feet, and she jabs a finger at him.

                “Oh, no,” she says. “You don’t get to show up here and call me an impostor and yell at the children, accuse me of deliberately hurting my husband, and then get to _drag_ me home.”

                “Ada,” he replies, shortly.

                “ _No,_ ” she repeats. “You can come with us or you can go back to Ylisse, Frederick, but I won’t be going with you until I’m ready.”

                “I will give it the consideration it is due,” he says, “but I am not going back to Ylisse without you in hand.”

                She just turns on her heel, as she is wont to do, and she walks away from camp with a snap to her walk and her shoulders squared. Cherche glances his way and then follows Ada out quietly. Frederick sighs after her, and then looks to the children — they’ve both crept in during the argument, and now Owain stands with his arms folded, Cynthia beside him fidgeting on the spot.

                “We look upon the past,” Owain says, mournfully, evidently ramping up for some soliloquy, and Frederick glares with such intensity that Owain immediately changes his tone: “Truthfully, Sir Frederick, we could go home, but…”

                “And yet you agreed to go with her,” Frederick says. “Asinine.”

                “You did express some concern that she was an impostor," Owain says. "Are you at least satisfied that she is telling the truth, now?”

                “Yeah,” Cynthia offers. “I can admit it’s a bit silly to just go with her without even asking, but we weren’t _wrong._ It _is_ her.”

                “Foolish but fair," Frederick says. "My concerns are of a different nature now."

                “Yeah, but… we want to help her," Cynthia says. Her voice is so small, and Frederick feels towering in comparison. "I don't think she's okay… will you at least consider helping us?"

                Frederick sighs.

                "Were it only Ada I served, yes," Frederick says. "But my services have been pledged to the Exalt first and foremost, and skirting the truth with him is not an option."

                "Surely my uncle wants what would make his wife happiest," Owain offers. "Surely he would not hesitate to forgive you... Or forgive all of us."

                "You condone, then, keeping secrets of such importance to him?" Frederick asks. It's levied as a warning.

                "No," Owain says. "But if he must be told, why not ask him to ride out and join us?"

                Frederick shakes his head.

                "Firstly, the Exalt is under a great deal of pressure right now. I know you take a great deal of pride in missions of the heart, a cause that Chrom himself has championed many times, but he is Exalt now. The kingdom is not stable. Plegia has all but collapsed! The people do not trust him yet."

                "Sir Frederick, I have spent the past few _months_ trudging through Plegia, witnessing with my own eyes the deplorable state of its people," Owain argues. “Surely Ylisse, untouched by war, is stable enough for its Exalt to travel for a few weeks.”

                “Do not forget your mother so quickly," Frederick warns. "Every day we are here is a day she approaches the birth of her child without your presence, or mine. Would you take her brother from her side, as well?”

                Owain finally –– _finally_ –– runs out of alternatives, right there. He looks at his feet for a second, but then he sets his shoulders once more.

                “I understand, Sir Frederick. But I am sure my selfless and kind-spirited mother would understand, too, and so I will accompany my aunt to her destination. If you drag her home, you will be dragging me, too.”

                “I see,” Frederick replies, and he looks to Cynthia. “And you?”

                “I might not look it, I’m actually pretty heavy,” she says. “Especially in all this armor. Aaand you know, as much as I want to get home to my parents, I think this is the truly heroic thing to do in this situation. I don’t even care that when we get home, we’re going to be, uh… what’s the word?”

                “Court-martialed,” Owain supplies, with a grin.

                “Right, that. I will be court-marshalled a thousand times if it means fulfilling my duty here!” She nods so firmly that she bounces on the balls of her feet, her ponytail-wings bobbing cheerily. She looks to Owain and smiles widely. “Right?”

                “Right,” Owain agrees. He nods, too. “You'll have to sling us each over a shoulder, and put Auntie under your arm if you want to drag us all home!"

                The two lace their fingers together, and Frederick is left, largely, without a choice.

                “Alright, then,” he says. “I will consider it.”

                The two look at each other, and not wanting to indignify himself by lunging away, Frederick ends up abruptly sandwiched between two enthusiastic young people, each embracing him from once side to a chorus of “hurrahs!”

                “I said _consider!_ ”

* * *

 

                “Did you find out anything?” Frederick asks, first thing, the first chance he gets. The children and Ada have gone to bed, finally, after a whole evening of stiff silences and discomfort.

                Cherche looks at him, tossing her long hair over one shoulder as she straightens up, and she gives the tent behind them a brief look, just to be sure that they have some privacy.

                “Not much,” Cherche says. “It is her, however. Without a doubt.”

                Frederick frowns. Though she is his wife and he thinks the world of her, he is hesitant to trust anything about Ada at this time, even if Cherche seems convinced. In Frederick’s professional opinion, sometimes her judgement of character is poor.  Cherche is at times single-minded, capable of noticing the slightest twitch of a dragon scale but simple in her approach to people. She might believe it is her without question, but Frederick still has his doubts.

                “I see,” he says.

                Cherche moves to him and she sits on his knee. Frederick has half a mind to brush her off –– they’re hardly in any degree of privacy, with their conversation shielded from prying ears only by a bit of canvas –– but her hand on his cheek stills him.

                “We’ve gone about this the wrong way,” Cherche says, softly. “We should have told Chrom immediately, and their children, too.”

                Frederick feels his stomach sink. 

                “We couldn’t have known it was really her,” Frederick says. “And until we have a proper explanation, I’m still not sure I trust her.”

                Cherche shrugs her shoulders, loose and lovely. 

                “She’s been through so much, Frederick,” she says. "She's evidently not well, but that doesn't mean it isn't her."

                “She wasn’t well when she died,” Frederick says. He pauses. “When she _left._ I didn't doubt her so much then.”

                “Perhaps not,” Cherche agrees, “but even if she’s morose and anxious and angry with us, she's warm with the children. I haven’t see her laugh and carry on with anyone like that in a long time, not even with Chrom."

                “I don’t know what to make of her being anxious with us, though,” Frederick says. “I thought she was just sulking at having been caught.”

                Cherche laughs a little at that.

                “It’s gone to your head,” she says, amused.

                “So I was wrong to believe I was crushing an impostor,” Frederick says. Any gloat he might have had at finding her is swiftly crushed by the thought that he _should_ have told Chrom.

                Cherche doesn't look at him. She glances back to the tent behind them, where the sound of laughter floats through the canvas, Ada’s included. Ada’s too relaxed, Frederick thinks. Much too relaxed for this situation.

                “Perhaps so,” Cherche says. “But I feel one of us should fly back to Ylisse. I don’t like that no one knows we’re out here.”

                Frederick nods. He can’t disagree.

                “Well,” he says. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking Minerva over such distances, and I must confess I would rather stay with Ada and the children. Would it be terrible of me to ask you to go?”

                Cherche shakes her head.

                “I’ll go,” she says. “But what do you intend to do?”

                Frederick sighs.

                “I’ll join her on this fool’s errand, if I must.”

                Cherche looks at him amused, suddenly.

                “So when I approach Lord Chrom on his royal throne, and speak before court and reveal what has happened… will the Exalt be angry that you nearly skewered his wife with a lance?”

                Frederick almost laughs at that, though it’s bitter and low.

                “I must apologize for that,” he says. “To her, that is.”

                “To him, you’ll grovel,” Cherche says.

                “Yes,” he agrees. “For him, I’ll grovel.”

                She chuckles, and she runs her ankle along the inside of his calf in such a gentle, subtle way that a shiver runs up his whole leg, right to his groin. Frederick pulls her right into an embrace, comfortably, despite how close they are to prying eyes –– the new thought that he’ll be watching her leave soon fills him with an instant loneliness. 

                “All will turn out fine,” Cherche says, close to his ear. “Don’t fret.”

* * *

 

                Frederick retires early that night, leaving the watch to Owain. But he can’t sleep –– not well, at least –– and he wakes in the early hours of the morning to Cherche’s back to him and Cynthia snoring loudly on his other side, so he thinks to get up to relieve the guard, whoever that was. He finds out when he pokes his head out: there’s Ada, sitting by the fire, which has been coaxed back to life. Her back is to him.

                The sky is just barely starting to lighten, and the trees around them are still a black sea beyond the grassy knoll that is their camp. The darkness could almost swallow their tiny camp, and its tiny fire. Her figure is so hunched, silhouetted by the fire. He feels a stab of sympathy for her, seeing her sitting out there alone. 

                So he goes to her. What else can he do, beyond letting the tension persist?

                “I'd offer you tea,” he says, “but for some petty reason, I didn’t think to bring your favourite tea, even on the rare chance it really was you.”

                She glances back at him.

                "Frederick," she sighs, but her frustration with him seems to have withered and left her calm, collected. "When have I ever been picky with you?"

                "Scarcely," Frederick says. “But you are alive, my lady. I should have appreciated that instead of being cross.”

                She doesn’t say anything –– she probably agrees, but she’s never been one to rub it in. Frederick stands there for a moment, and when she offers him nothing in response, he tries to imagine this strange woman in the sleek robes of a Ylissean queen, elegantly receiving her husband's guests and charming them with her sharp and witty tongue. It doesn't seem at all likely, especially knowing who she is, after all he has seen her through. The tongue, maybe. The elegance… well. Ada doesn’t possess a fraction of Emmeryn’s grace, or that of Emmeryn’s mother. She just wasn't made to be a queen.

                “Besides,” he says. “You have a right to be picky with me. You’ll be Queen soon, and a queen gets whatever she wants.”

                "Don't be ridiculous,” she replies. She makes a face, suddenly, slight but there, and he’s not sure what to make of it, as her attention is ahead of her once more. She just pats the place next to her in the grass. “Oh, sit down. I swear, you’re lucky I’ve gotten used to _any_ pampering. I don’t think I could take everyone bowing to my _every_ whim.”

                “So what you said in the letter true, then?” Frederick asks.

                “Hmm?" Ada replies, hardly even looking at him. He realizes she's busy with her cloak, attempting to mend a hole with a scrap of thread pulled from the hem, but she’s not doing a terribly good job of it.

                “About your memory," he says.

                "Yes, Fredericson," she says, lightly playing him off. "I remember you."

                “I meant whether you remember your past," he says, delicately. There's so much he could ask about, but he doesn't want to scare her off, lest she crawl back into the shell she'd built for herself before the journey to Origin Peak. “And don't be coy, you _love_ it when people agree with you––oh, give me that."

                He puts out a hand. She looks at him then, collected as ever, and she hands him the bundle of her cloak and the needle.

                "I'm so bad at that," she says.

                "At sewing, or answering difficult questions?" Frederick asks. 

                "Both," she humors him.

                "You could just answer," Frederick says. "Speak your mind. Forget what is wise or strategic to say for just a moment, and tell me how it is we came to be in this situation.”

                Ada shakes her head, slow and tired, and Frederick untangles the thread to do some proper stitches.

                “Well, then, I remember everything,” Ada says. “Including the things before I met you and Chrom and Lissa. I remember my childhood. Who I was. _Everything._ ”

                Frederick accidentally pricks himself with the needle, but the dull pain barely registers under the surprise buzzing through his entire body. He looks at her with widening eyes.

                “Really,” he says. “Why didn't you just say so? I would have thought that to be a good thing.”

                “It is, for the most part,” she says. “I’ve never felt more at peace about that, at least, to finally know who I am. But I also feel like I need to prove it’s true. I used to have a lot of dreams about things that happened in the other timeline.”

                “So you want to see for yourself,” he says.

                “The house is the only thing I can think of that would be undeniable proof,” she says. “The house should still be there. It was there when I left.”

                “When you left?”

                Frederick watches Ada sit forward a little, staring into the fire. He can almost see the cogs moving in her head, right through her eyes.

                “When my mother died, I left for Ylisse,” she says. “I wasn’t going to live in the mountains alone, so I abandoned it. And then, when Grima assaulted me in the fields outside Ylissetol, I lost my memory of it all. Gods, Frederick, if I could see it now –– it would probably be a time capsule, untouched for a decade.”

                "Not quite a decade yet," he replies.

                She pauses, counts on her fingers.

                "Six years," she says. "Is that right?"

                "I suspect so," he says. He pauses, and decides to try again: “I’m sure Lord Chrom would understand your desire to go. Why not go later, and come back to Ylisse first? You could be reunited with him, and––“

                “No.”

                Frederick frowns.

                “No?”

                “No,” she repeats. She purses her lips momentarily. “I can't. I’m not ready to see him yet. I wasn’t even ready to talk to you beyond that letter.”

                “Milady,” he says, tentatively. He wonders if she considers the letter a mistake, though it is too late to take it back now. “Your letter left me with no choice _but_ to seek you out, whether I told him of your return or not. He is going to expect me to come home with the children, at the very least, and I don’t feel I can keep the truth from him.”

                She sits angled away from him now, defensively. She looks perhaps rightfully cross with him, though — he had been tasked with informing his lord of her return, and yet he had not only disregarded that order but deliberately sook her out to doubt her in it.

                "Give me the letter," she says.

                Frederick passes it wordlessly.

                She throws it in the fire. Frederick watches it slip off the highest log and land right over the flames, and in a heartbeat it is consumed.

                "I'll explain it all to him," Ada says. "You're off the hook. I'll clean up my own messes. You came here looking for the kids, like I’m sure you told him you were, and it'll just be a surprise that you found me, too.”

                “And _lie_ to Lord Chrom?” he says. Not that it would be a good excuse, anyhow.

                Ada shakes her head.

                “I don’t think he’ll care half as much as you think he would. He’ll just be happy to have me back. And have you back, frankly –– I’m sure he’s got his boots on the wrong feet without you there to lay out his clothes, and all that.”

                “You have a… way with words, Ada,” he says. He worries for her, suddenly. What is this about?

                Both of them fall silent there, and Frederick can’t look at her anymore, so he stares into the woods. The sky is lightening now, a deep blue, and the birds are starting up on the horizon. Frederick finishes the repair on her cloak and hands it back to her, and she folds it across her lap.

                "This doesn't make much sense to me, Ada," he admits.

                "I know," she replies. "I'm sorry about that."

                He ruminates on that for a second. Ada, _sorry_.

                “I hope you can understand what it has been like in Ylissetol — and why my patience with you has been shorter than it should be.” He pauses. “It is difficult to see you gallivanting on some personal quest with so little explanation while Lord Chrom is at home, gripped in mourning."

                Ada sighs. She seems tired, suddenly, like there’s a weight on her that is slowly pressing her into the earth.

                "Frederick, we might have our differences but I really, truthfully did not expect you wouldn't tell Chrom _at all,_ ” she says. “I thought you’d tell him and he’d have a shred of hope, which would be good for him, and then I’d be home before long.”

                “You yourself said he would cause unrest to reach you,” Frederick replies.

                “I thought you’d tell him anyway,” Ada says. “Since when do you hide anything from him?”

                Frederick pauses.

                “I likely would have told him, if the events of that morning hadn’t occured,” he replies.

                Ada looks concerned.

                "What events?"

                So he tells her the story of the council and his untimely replacement, all of it, and how it came timed with Owain and Cynthia's disappearance, and the visit from Nowi, and the letter, and the manakete loose in the castle, and the journey.

                "But they'd never replace you,” she says, incredulous. "They couldn't."

                "I heard it with mine own ears," Frederick replies. "They intend, and they will. Chrom isn't exactly in good standing with his own council."

                "That can't possibly be true," Ada replies. "Surely Chrom fought against it?"

                "When I left, he still did not know," Frederick replies. "That is why I am here, milady — I thought I would carry out this as my last mission, that which would bring him the most joy."

                Ada seems touched at that, expression softening, but she still shakes her head.

                "Frederick," she says, "Chrom would never allow them to retire you. And even if he somehow got it in his head that it was the best choice for _you_ , I wouldn't allow it."

                Frederick looks at her, quite surprised. They have been allies and colleagues in war, and yes, at one point they were good friends, but despite all the things and people they have shared, Ada has so rarely affirmed him in such a way. They drive each other mad, and often at that. They are fundamentally different people. They both understand that.

                Frederick feels taken aback for her to change the rules now.

                "Milady, that is quite touching, and I mean that most sincerely, but right now that is not my concern," he says.

                "Look," she says. "They can't do that after everything you've done for me, and my husband, and my children."

                "Ada," he says, patiently. "My point remains. I am here to bring you home."

                Ada shakes her head again, firmer.

                "And you will," she says, in that promising tone he's heard so many times over the years. "After I've been to the house. And then, you’ll stay with our family as long as you want.”

                Frederick doesn’t need her to fight for him –– he knows Chrom would, if only he asked. But still, in some way, it feels like such a relief to hear it.

                He nods.

                “I understand, Ada,” he says. “We’ll go.”

                She sighs, relieved.

                “Good,” she says. “If we keep moving again tomorrow, we’ll be there in no time.”

                “I’m sure we will,” Frederick says, “but I have one condition.”

                The relief on her face flickers.

                “Which is?” she asks.

                “I’m sending Cherche back to Ylisse,” he says. He watches her purse her lips; she knows exactly why, but he says it anyway: “She will inform Lord Chrom of what we are doing.”

                And then the relief is gone entirely.

                “Do you really want to upset him like that?” she says, but he knows, now, that she's mostly concerned for herself. Perhaps with good reason, but he won't know that until she says why.

                “I will if I must,” Frederick says. “And I think it necessary. And though I can’t pretend to understand why you’re acting otherwise, I think you understand that entirely.”

                Ada opens her mouth to argue, to push back, but she doesn’t. 

                “Fine,” she says.

                “And don’t leave my sight,” he adds, quickly. “If I’m taking you anywhere, I insist on returning you to Chrom in one piece.”

                She just nods.

                "Noted," she says. Frederick can practically see the walls coming up again, pulled around her in a fortress, just like how she'd been when she'd started wrestling with Grima for control. He watches her tense up, hears her voice grow firm: "Are we finished here?"

                Frederick pauses.

                "I suppose we are."

                The long night has faded to dawn, and there's nothing left to say.

* * *

 

                Morning comes too soon. Frederick has scarcely crawled back into bed when the sun appears on the horizon, and by time morning has broken entirely, he’s overtired but underslept. It’s scarcely seven in the morning, by his best estimation, and the summer heat is already oppressive. If they had any sense, he decides, they’d travel overnight instead.

                None of them have any sense at all these days, it seems.

                When he rises and dresses, all are up but Ada. Owain is skinning a rabbit and narrating the tale of how he snared it, and Cynthia is punctuating it with little laughs and cheers. Cherche sits by them, politely amused but already dressed in her riding leathers and ready to leave.

                “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long,” Frederick replies. “I didn’t mean to oversleep.”

                “You came back to bed late. I thought I’d let you get at least a few hours,” she replies, pleasantly. She rises to her feet and walks by him, catching his hand in the process. Frederick almost pulls it away from her –– the children are right there –– but he won’t be touching that hand for another few weeks, so he chooses to savour it instead.

                She leads him out of camp, to where Minerva is waiting, already tacked up for the journey.

                “Are you sure you’ll be alright?” he asks her.

                “I’ll manage,” she replies. “I might even be faster without you, sleepyhead.”

                She raises a hand to cover his yawn. He smiles, a little ruefully, and he puts his arms around her only to find her already in them, and she leans up on the balls of her feet to press a kiss to his mouth.

                "I'll tell Chrom as hastily as I can, and do my best to keep him on the throne where he belongs," she says. "Be peaceful, my love."

                "And you as well," he says. His nerves are all alight, anxious and worried. Not having Cherche to help him keep an eye on things at all times is a great deal of incoming grief. "Please, send—"

                "Your utmost, most sincere apologies, and profess your profound regrets," she finishes. "Of course, darling."

                Frederick sighs, the slightest bit relieved.

                "You know me well," he says.

                She smiles, reaches to stroke his cheek, and then fleeting as she came, she pulls away. She mounts Minerva effortlessly, up and away from his reach, and she looks down at him with the sun haloing behind the crown of her head.

                “Try to keep patient with her," she says, “I love you, and I’ll see you in some weeks.”

                “I love you too,” he says.

                She pulls on her helmet and fits her feet to the stirrups, and she takes off without another word, Minerva's great leathery wings almost skimming Frederick's head. He watches her take to the sky speedily, and he stands there watching until she's gone from his sight almost entirely.

                “I guess you’ll be happier with Chrom knowing and worrying about us,” Ada calls, somewhere behind him.

                He turns, sharply. Ada’s standing there, arms folded. It digs at Frederick uncomfortably. Normally being passive aggressive is his domain, and on her it's positively snakelike. He squares his shoulders.

                "Milady," he says, "nothing could make me happier than seeing Lord Chrom reunited with you."

                Ada just nods, and then she says: "I just wish you trusted me."

                "As do I, milady," Frederick says. “But did you think, perhaps, to ask yourself if you trust me?"

                Inscrutible, she turns and walks away. Frederick scowls and follows, but he decides to let her be as another yawn overpowers him. She can stew if she wants –– he has to get a few more hours of sleep before they pack up and leave, as he has no intention of sleeping in the saddle.

* * *

 

                Frederick sleeps fitfully. He dreams of court, and of being dismissed from it. He dreams of Cherche, the empty space by his side. And, worst of all, he dreams of his Lord Chrom, cold and angry with him: how could he have hidden, for even a moment, for any reason, the possibility that his wife is alive?

                And worse yet, how could he have her here now, _alive,_ and not be taking her swiftly home?

                Perhaps he _should_ lose his position.

                It digs at him hard, so hard he feels it in his body.

                Right in the bottom of his foot, actually.

                Cynthia is sitting at his feet, her expression concentrated but her movements meek. He peers at her unimpressed, and he demands: "What on earth are you doing?"

                She startles and withdraws the offending hand immediately.

                "Breakfast is ready," she says. "We made it without you, hope you don't mind... You kinda overslept, but if you’re awake, we can eat now?”

                "Pardon me?" Frederick replies. He sits up abruptly. "What time is it? Where is Ada?"

                Cynthia looks mildly confused by this reaction. That makes sense, he supposes –– where, exactly, would she go?

                "Uh, still before noon. And she's just bathing… what's the big deal?"

                “I told her not to get far from my sight," Frederick grouses. He gets up, his back complaining and thighs sore from all the damned riding, but he doesn't have time to stretch.

                "You should ease up a little or you'll get an ulcer," Cynthia suggests. When he gives her a look of complete awe at her repeated audacity, she adds: "Or at least that's what my mother says." Another pause. " _Sir._ "

                "Go conduct a patrol," Frederick orders.

                Cynthia hesitates.

                "But breakfast is ready," she says.

                "You will not _starve_ ," Frederick says, mildly incredulous. Just two weeks with Ada and they've lost all sense of protocol, have they? 

                Frederick sighs and just pushes past the girl, his boots in one hand and shirt in the other. He catches Owain's eye across camp for only seconds before the boy says: "Sir, please put a shirt on, I can't compete with that!"

                Frederick scowls.

                "Tell me where your aunt is," he demands.

                “I told you,” Cynthia interjects, and she points. “She’s down by the river, bathing. Right down the hill. Are you seriously gonna barge in on her?”

                Overtaken by a sudden fear that she's actually run off, Frederick pulls his shirt on, and then his boots, right in the middle of camp — something he's sure the children are snickering at, but he lost his ability to be embarrassed in front of royal children some decades ago. He makes his way down the hill, through the trees, and down the slopes to where they give way to the rocks and the creek.

                "Ada!" he calls.

                "Down here," she calls back, not at all perturbed. Frederick sighs, relieved that she is safe, but still cross that she walked off at all. "What's wrong?"

                "Nothing," he says. "I'm coming down."

                "That's really not necessary but I know you're going to anyway," she calls back, even while he's already picking his way to the treeline.

                If she looks at him, he can't tell — he's trying to approach her with his eyes politely averted, which is no small task when he's stepping over rocks.

                "What's the matter?" she asks him.

                "I told you not to leave my sight," he says. Her clothes are draped over a rock, and he stoops to pick them up and fold them. "You can't slip off on me, young lady."

                "I'm _bathing_ , not running off," she replies, the slightest bit amused. “Go on, go eat breakfast, I will be up in ten minutes."

                Not a chance, Frederick thinks. This is hardly the porcelain tub in her quarters at the castle, but she has been known, on occasion, to linger in a bath until her skin prunes. More than once she's missed training sessions with that excuse, and he knows she'll try it on him now if it pleases her.

                He picks up her towel off the rocks and unfolds it.

                Frederick tries again: "Milady, please. Come out of the water."

                Ada heaves a sigh, and he dutifully keeps his eyes low. She comes towards him out of the water, and he holds out the towel for her. She tries to take it, but he just wraps it around her firmly.

                "Full service," Ada says, relenting, hugging the towel around herself comfortably. "I must really be an Exalt's wife, huh?"

                “You’re not queen yet," Frederick says, albeit gently. "Dry yourself and your hair.”

                “I’m surprised you’re not making me stand here while you towel me off head to toe,” she says, amused.

                “Cut your sass," he says, pointedly. “It is my duty to take care of you, even when you are driving me mad, but I am not your nurse.”

                "It was a joke," Ada says. “Relax. Besides, you've walked in on Chrom and I enough that I doubt it would even phase you.” She snorts. "You'd walk in and practically start making the bed around us!”

                Frederick's cheeks burn. He picks up her clothes and hands them to her, and then politely turns his back.

                “Get dressed,” he says, pointedly.

                Ada chuckles, and he just stares into the trees while she dresses. He didn't raise Ada — not even close — but he's put so much care into training her and pampering her over the years, and it would be amiss of him to not care for her in every way he could. She might as well be one of his babies, not unlike how Chrom and Lissa are, but she makes it so damned difficult sometimes. 

                Funny. Once, he’d considered her attitude towards being served a mark of her being lowborn, unused to the rigors of court life. Now, knowing her lineage, it’s markedly different: some part of her has always _feared_ ruling, even the privileges that come with it.

                “You know, maybe I have missed this a little,” she says. “Traveling with two runaway kids isn’t exactly the royal caravan. No towel service.”

                “Are you saying you appreciate me?” Frederick asks. He’s not sure if she’s still teasing him.

                “Oh, don’t be silly,” she replies. “We might have disagreements, but you’ve always taken care of me. I mean that.”

                Frederick feels a tug of concern for how he’s treated her these past few days, or thought of her for _months_.

                “Well, milady,” he says, “disagreements aside, it is my pleasure to see to your wellbeing.”

                She steps around him, giving him a friendly pat on the arm as she goes, and she starts heading up the hill. Frederick follows through the trees, watching her long hair sway.

                “Do you still faint, Ada?” he asks, curiously.

                “I do,” she says. Business as usual; he would have hoped that would have stopped with Grima, but perhaps it's always been something she's been predisposed to.

                “How often?”

                “Perhaps twice since coming back,” she says. She looks at him with a shrug, slightly sheepish –– her weak constitution has never seemed to embarrass her, but she’s never been particularly proud of it, either. “Don’t worry, though. The second time was with the kids, so Owain and Cynthia took good care of me.”

                “I would hope so,” he says. “And the first?”

                “Oh, that’s how they caught me in Valm,” she says, with a wave of her hand. “They took care of me, too.”

                “Hmm,” Frederick hums. “We almost sent someone to Valm to speak with that Lord, to see if it was true.”

                “Good thing you didn’t, because I was long gone,” Ada replies. And then, with a chuckle, she continues: “Hey, remember when I was pregnant, and I passed out? I was within inches of hitting the floor, and you caught me. You and Chrom were on my heels all the time after that for the rest of the pregnancy, I swear I tripped over you two more often than I passed out.”

                “I don’t recall,” he says, but it seems passingly familiar. 

                “You must be getting old,” Ada teases.

                “I’m afraid so,” Frederick replies. “I think I grew my first gray hair the day Lissa was born.”

                Ada laughs.

                “Well, when we get back, I’m going to tell Lucina that story,” she says. “Tell her that you two have been protecting her since before she was even born.”

                “Do you mean Ryn?” Frederick asks.

                Ada looks at him with dubious surprise. 

                “Oh,” she says. “Well, she was called Lucina then.”

                Frederick lets her have it, not wanting another argument, but it nags at him the rest of the morning, so much that he scarcely even thinks about the ache in his bones from all the traveling. 

* * *

 

                Sometime around late afternoon, when Owain and Ada are packing up camp, Frederick takes a brief break from tacking the horses to stretch. Cynthia comes to him mid-stretch, apparently taking her own break from gathering berries from the woods. She seems to take a lot of breaks.

                “Look here,” Cynthia says.

                Frederick glances over to her, mid-stretch, even though his tight hamstrings beg for more attention. Cynthia is standing close, holding her hands out. Frederick squints.

                “Is that…?”

                “Blueberries!” she says, thrilled. They are piled between her palms, her skin dappled with rich purple stains from handling them. “I was gonna share them with Ada first but then I remembered you like them.”

                “I do,” Frederick says. “Thank you, Cynthia.”

                “No problem,” she says, tipping a bunch into his outstretched hand. She chatters away: “You know, I know things are tense right now but Owain and I are kind of relieved to have you here.”

                “Is that so?” he says.

                “Yeah,” she says. She glances up the hill, to where Ada and Owain are packing up camp, and she admits: “She would never admit it, but I don’t think her memories are as good as she thinks. It’s good for her to have someone from this timeline who can help her figure it out, it’s less confusing after… well, everything.”

                “She has been through a lot. I imagine it’s difficult to come back from everything that happened and then spend weeks with children from another timeline,” he says. “You have a very different perspective on the events than she does.”

                “Yeah,” Cynthia agrees.

                There’s a beat of silence between them.

                “I worry about her memories as well,” he adds, concerned. He sees his chance to ask, but he treads carefully: “A few times, she’s told me stories I don’t remember, and she seems to have trouble telling Ryn and Lucina apart.”

                Cynthia hesitates.

                “I knowwww, but they’re kind of the same,” she says. “I mean, they were born at the same time. Sort of. It makes sense to me.” 

                “She never had trouble before,” Frederick replies. “And I don’t imagine that gaining memories of her childhood would––”

                He pauses.

                “Sir?”

                “Cynthia,” he says.

                “Yessir?”

                “How did you know?” he asks.

                “About you liking blueberries?” She looks momentarily confused, and Frederick watches it click on her face. “Oh, that Auntie can’t tell the difference between Ryn and Lucina?”

                “Yes,” he replies.

                Cynthia looks at him like a startled deer.

                “Because…” she trails off.

                Frederick feels an old sinking feeling.

                He moves away from Cynthia abruptly, his mind running wildly, too fast to pin the thoughts down.

                “Sir Frederick," Cynthia calls after him. “What’s wrong?”

                “Quiet, please,” he says.

                Frederick doesn't reply. He's heading up the hill in long strides, and when the camp comes into view, he fixes his eyes on Ada, who is engrossed in packing up her bedroll. Her back is to him. Excellent. Cynthia is hot on his heels, and she catches up to shoot him an alarmed look, but she says nothing. It's better if Ada does not see this question coming.

                Frederick stops within twenty feet of her –– a safe distance, no doubt –– and he lifts his voice, casually, to call:

                "May I help you with that, Robin?" he asks.

                Ada turns to look at him. "Yes, please, I can't get..."  She stops abruptly. Frederick feels his breath catch in his throat, and he's sure it shows on his face, for her expression quickly grows alarmed. 

                "Robin," he repeats. "You answer to Robin."

                Ada -- or not Ada, this _stranger_ \-- freezes on the spot, crouched over her bedroll.

                "Frederick," she says, quickly, but that's not reassuring. It's not a yes or no, it's not the instant, easy rest she owes him. "Frederick, it's not like that."

                "Then what, pray tell, is it like?" he says. He feels nervous, suddenly, even when he feels he should be angry –– he’s been misled for a whole day, and now Cherche is carrying the wrong news back to Lord Chrom. And then, before she can respond, he demands: "Who are you?"

                She rises up to her feet. She clasps a hand to her breast, over her heart, her eyes wide. "Frederick, it’s me. I promise.”

                “You _are_ Robin, aren’t you?” he asks. He’s surprised by how calm he feels, but maybe that’s because he _knows_ now. “Were you reborn in this timeline in her stead?”

                Both children look to Ada –– Robin –– for guidance, for some indication of whether they should intervene or not, but they get none. She brushes her bangs from her face, seemingly exhausted all of a sudden.

                “Go, kids,” she says. “I need to speak with Frederick in private.”

                Cynthia slinks off immediately, but Owain hesitates. Instead, he goes to Robin and places a hand on her shoulder.

                “Auntie,” he says, quite seriously, “I’ll explain it to him, if you don’t feel up to it.”

                “No, no,” she replies, “It’s okay, Owain. I’ll tell him.”

                Owain pauses again, but he nods and slinks off, too. Frederick watches them go, even if he is loathe to turn his back on Robin for even an instant. When they’re out of earshot, Frederick turns back to her. 

                She’s sank down to sit in the grass, and for a moment he stares at the back of her head. Her hair is still damp from this morning, tangled and unbrushed. Though his stomach feels as though it is thoroughly twisted, he just feels a deep concern. Could he have noticed? If Cynthia hadn’t slipped him a hint, when would he have realized? He scruntinizes her, looking for some indication he might have overlooked before.

                But all he sees is Ada. He wouldn’t know anything else. He’s never known Robin, after all, he's just seen her body in forms misshapen and corrupted by Grima.

                “Why didn’t you tell me?” Frederick asks. He’s not sure why that’s his first concern. “When were you going to? When we found this house of yours? When we reached Ylisse? When…”

                He pauses.

                “When Chrom realized who you were… or who you weren’t? Is that why you don't want to go back?”

                She doesn’t look at him. He crouches down at her side, and he’s surprised to see her eyes are glassy. It's a strange thing to see her be so meek, backed into a corner.

                Perhaps he pities her, this woman who was host to Grima.

                “Robin?” he says, softer.

                She looks at him, then.

                “I _would_ have told you,” she says. “But I didn't have time to plan how to tell you, and it’s all tangled up, and I feel like I’m… having trouble processing it all. When you showed up, it just… it just threw me off. I can't make sense of it, Frederick. Like when Grima was taking over, and I started feeling like my thoughts were not my own.” 

                “Robin," he says, softer still. "Please… slow down. Breathe."

                She's not even panicking, but seeing her on the cusp of it makes him feel alarmed, all his hair standing on end. She looks at him, alarmed too.

                “I’m not from another timeline,” she says. “Let me explain–– here.”

                She pulls her hair from her ponytail, suddenly, brushing it to the side to reveal a section of scalp at her temple, a few pale inches of bare skin. There above her ear is a white scar, a few inches long, well-healed for a year or more.

                Frederick knows that scar; he stitched it himself when it was a wound.

                “Do you remember?” she says, and she searches his face almost desperately. “One night, just after we found Morgan, Chrom woke to find me struggling to get out of bed, I collapsed and hit my head, and he called for you –– you remember? Morgan was there –– he was sleeping, sleeping in our tent. He was terrified.” 

                “Yes,” Frederick says, but now he feels very confused. That was with Ada, certainly. It couldn’t have happened in another timeline, not with Morgan there, not with him there. “Yes, I stitched it myself. But…”

                She nods, fervently.

                "It couldn't have happened in Robin's timeline," she says, rapidly. "It couldn't."

                "I agree," he says, and a worse thought dawns on him, but he keeps talking: "Owain and Cynthia were in Ylisse, we never spoke of it because we didn't want to cause concern that you were getting worse."

                "And it couldn't have been Robin because–– because she became Grima when Morgan was still a baby, and you–– you _died,_ not long after, so––so I can't be Robin,” she says, raising her hand in defense. "I can't be from another timeline."

                Frederick frowns. He catches that hand, holds it gently, and he tries to lighten his voice, like he's talking to a child. Pleading.

                “Please, Ada –– _Ada_  –– what does this mean? What are you trying to tell me?”

                She shifts on her knees, hand still ensnared in his, and he looks down at the smooth back of her hand, free of the Mark of Grima.

                “I remember more than just my life before –– I remember _two_ lives,” she says. “I remember _too much_ , and it all conflicts at so many points. I don’t even know what to do.”

                Frederick pauses.

                “You mean to say…” he trails off.

                Ada goes very pale, and she hunches over, her other hand over her mouth. Frederick finds himself staring at her. She doesn’t say anything, but the tears are welling in her eyes and catching on her eyelashes.

                It makes sense, suddenly, the hesitation on her face in naming her own children, the strangeness of their relationship, the sudden closeness with her nephew.

                “You have Robin’s memories, as well as your own,” he says. “Ada…”

                She nods fervently, and then buries her face in her hands entirely.

                And then he’s lost for words, too.

 

 


	7. Interlude: My Dear Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frederick's note to his son, Gerome.

.

 

 

                

                A letter with the teal wax seal of Sir Frederick’s family, left on his son Gerome's bed in the barracks. The letter reads:

 

> _My dear son,_
> 
> _In a perfect world, my child would never learn of his parents whereabouts from a note, and he would never learn that his mother and father had left him without at least some solemn goodbye, in case of their passing in the line of duty._
> 
> _But you, my child, are not due home for at least another fortnight, and your mother and I do not have days to spare for a hello and goodbye. As such, this note will have to suffice as not only a goodbye, but also a record of where we are in case the worst happens._
> 
> _News has come from a woman in Plegia who claims to be Ada, and she claims to have taken your friends Owain and Cynthia to "the house she grew up in." We do not know where that is, and so it is important that we catch up with them quickly. We must verify her story as the truth, especially if she may be an impostor who has two of our own as hostages._
> 
> _Please inform the Exalt should you fail to hear from us within a month from this date; until then, please use your best discretion on this subject until we have returned and discussed. Despite our cynicism, we can only hope for the best circumstances._
> 
> _Your mother is of course blessed with such conviction for her return that she will leave no note. (She does ask, as always, that you visit home more often.) I, however, am always anxious. I know you brace yourself each time we go, and I imagine you are doing it now. You hide it well, and were I not a man of similar convictions, it would go unnoticed._
> 
> _Gerome, I hope you do not look back too often to the shadows on your youth, and instead commit yourself to merriness in the great peace we have been blessed with._
> 
> _With good fortune, your mother and I will be here in a week or two. Please wait for us, so that we can at least have a few afternoons together before you depart again._
> 
> _Love,_
> 
> _Papa_


	8. Save Your Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina has never been the best at the truth: her father's open-hearted honesty has always complemented her mother's strategic approach, but both live in her as a heavy contradiction. If Mother were to return and she could bring her home, however, perhaps she could put all of that behind her and live honestly in the future. But if she wants that life –– and her mother back –– Lucina has to get her little brother to the mysterious house, and have hope that she's right about everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Busy busy busy busy busy busy busy but getting writing done hopefully. I don't have much to say here, I just thought it'd be weird if I didn't have something. Enjoy!

.

 

 

 

 

                

                Lucina thinks her father looks a lot older these days. 

                Odd, because for so long she'd look at his face and only see how young he was compared to the father of her childhood. Now, things are a little different. While he's still a great number of years from grey, he moves a little slower, and he stares into nothing a whole lot more. There's a weight on him, like gravity is personally picking on him.

                Loss ages people. She knows that.

                At breakfast she sits across from him, the two of them eating from identical plates: two eggs (both over easy), four strips of bacon (crispy, just on the cusp of blackened), a cup of porridge (speckled with raspberries, blackberries) and an apple, cut into wedges with the cores still in. Ryn is to her left, gurgling and slopping her porridge all over the tabletop –– she's a fussy eater on a good day, but perhaps worse without Frederick's patience. Morgan is… well, he's Morgan. He'd come in like a hurricane earlier and gone right back out, leaving her alone with their father again.

                (She still feels a tickle of upset with him over last night, but that can't be helped. Morgan couldn't possibly understand her perspective, with his blissful lack of memories.)

                Lucina fishes an appleseed out from between her teeth with her tongue, which seems rather undignified to her, but her father isn't looking. He's got his nose buried in paperwork, his breakfast mostly untouched, and there's a heaviness in his shoulders again.

                "Wouldn't it be easier if you just had them summarized to you?" Lucina asks, gently. 

                Her father looks up at her. She still has the appleseed under her tongue, but she doesn't want to spit it out with him watching. He just watches her for a beat, warm-eyed but unsmiling.

                "I think I prefer to do it this way," he says, finally. "I don't want to spend all my hours in meetings."

                Lucina could point out the fruitlessness of spending twice as long reading instead, but she knows why he does it. She also knows he struggles to keep up with being Exalt — he hadn't spent his childhood being groomed to rule as his eldest sister had, and his early adulthood had been a trial in war, not nation-building. There was some expectation that Emmeryn's line would have continued, and when that didn't come to pass, there was the expectation that he'd have years of peacetime to adjust. And then, even after that, there was the expectation that a future in which he ruled would perhaps never come to pass at all.

                But now they actually have a future to take care of. With the surrounding nations in tatters from war, they have no place to threaten Ylisse's potential expansion, and Ylisse needs a pragmatist, a _politician_. Someone who can soothe the people, imbue them with confidence, and convince them that cunning political moves like annexing are what the nation needs to stay safe, secure.

                There's no need for a budding warlord in such times. They need an architect.

                Prince Chrom was a war hero. Exalt Chrom doesn't seem interested in doing anything with the spoils of his heroism.

                "I could help, if you'd like," Lucina says.

                Her father smiles at that, though his eyes fall low. He is a great man, Lucina thinks, but all great men are defined by their struggle. And if he isn't feeling great now, in this very moment, he will again someday.

                "No, Lucina, there's no need for that," he says, gently. "You just enjoy yourself, go be irresponsible and adventuresome. You've earned it."

                (Lucina won't point out that they aren't allowed to adventure, or that irresponsibility has never been in her character.)

                "It truly wouldn't bother me to help more," Lucina says.

                Her father just sighs, soft and distracted. 

                "Here, then," he relents. He slides a sheaf of paper across the table to her. "Maybe you have a better idea of what young mothers in Ylisse need in the way of charity? You're a girl."

                Lucina hasn't a clue, but she takes it anyway and flips the first page. Her eyes scan over the elegant handwriting, and though it is instantly dull, she reads it anyway. Her father lapses into silence again, but she's scarcely through the third page when she notices he is watching her with a lost look on his face.

                She gives him a curious look.

                "She looked after so much," he says. Lucina freezes, and he carries on, eyes boring into her but not quite _there_. "I hardly know what I'm doing without her. She might as well have taken half my body with her. All of my brain."

                Lucina sits straighter, uncomfortably. On a good day, she doesn't like to think much about Mother, but after her conversation with Morgan last night, it's already fresh on her mind, and his words feel –– he _knows_ she's mourned three times over now and is even less equipped than he is. 

                As far as the emotional reserves go, Lucina is spent.

                "But you've accomplished so much in these past months," she says, regardless, because she loves him dearly. "You're one of the greatest Exalts that will ever be, father."

                He doesn't look like he believes her — _not in this timeline,_ he seems to say, but he doesn't put it in words. _I wanted to talk about her, not the halidom._ He just drops his eyes back to the papers.

                "Someday, maybe," he says, heavily, sitting back in his seat. "Thank you, Lucina."

                "Of course, Father," she says.

                "I don't know why, but I woke up this morning and just thought if she came back, everything would be okay again," he says.

                She just nods. Perhaps it's glib to brush him off and refuse to talk about it any more, but she knows he's a little frustrated, too –– he tries his best to hide it, to put on a good front, but she can see it roiling under the surface. He doesn't _want_ to be brushed off, but Lucina is tired.

                The rest of breakfast is quiet, uncomfortable, and when the plates are cleared her father's breakfast is still mostly untouched. Ryn is swept away in a nurse's arms, and her father watches the baby go with a longing look. Maybe tomorrow he'll have more time for his youngest, but today is for catching up on yesterday's responsibilities.

                Lucina gets up and slides the papers on young motherhood back to her father.  

                "May I meet you in the study to read more?" she says. "I'm going on a quick walk, first, so I have a fresh mind."

                Her father nods and thanks her, but Lucina just sweeps out, her throat tight.

* * *

                She doesn't get far before Brady intercepts her.

                "You've got trouble," he says. "Just like you said."

                Lucina saw this coming; if not last night, or on his birthday, then for the months it has built up. All the conversations with Morgan, his budding desire to just go out and find Mother, wherever ( _if_ ever) she is, the increasing chatter of ideas. Father finally seems receptive to maybe going out to the Mila Tree, but who knows if Morgan will run off before that happens?

                That's why she always has a plan. That's why all of her friends have been warned, over and over again, for months on end, of how likely it would be for Morgan to get up one day and decide to just go. Of course, one could trust Morgan to pick a time where most of their friends are already traveling, or tied down with too much duty. If it were possible, Lucina would have them all on perpetual standby, but they're _all_ trying to move on with their lives.

                "When is he going?" she asks.

                "Today," Brady says. "Noire and Kjelle said no, too, so I'm guessing he's just going to hack it on his own if today's really the day."

                Lucina sighs.

                "I'll go find him," she says. "Father would lose his head if I let him slip out."

                "Yeah, well," Brady shrugs. "He didn't seem to have any idea of where t' actually _go_ , he just decided he was _going_ to go."

                Lucina shakes her head.

                "I suspected as much," she says.

                "I do have good news, though," he says, with his hands fisted deep in his pockets and the slightest lift to his near-permanent scowl. "Your boy's back. He always early like this?"

                "Gerome isn't my _boy_ ," Lucina replies, patiently, though she's instantly pleased at the news. 

                "Ya, well, you know what I mean," Brady says. "He just landed in the stables, and now I gotta go before Ma gets out of her meeting and realizes I'm gone."

                He gestures with his violin case, and Lucina nods.

                "Thank you so much, Brady," she says.

                He just shrugs his shoulders and tips his head, and then skulks off. Lucina smiles, breathes in deep and reaches up to smooth her hair, entirely out of girlish reflex. Morgan can wait until she's seen Gerome, she's sure. Though the responsibility nags at her, she knows Morgan would hesitate to leave alone, and she's not terribly worried that he'd rush out, so she then jogs the entire way to the stables.

                Lucina sees him at a hundred yards, recognizing him by the shape of his shoulders and the easy way he stands alone. He's pulling off his helmet, and he tucks it under his arm to wipe his hair back from his face with his free hand. A few stray locks fall into his eyes anyway.

                She starts before him casually, and when he sees her from the corner of his eye, she can't help but quicken her pace.

                "My lady," he says, about as fond as he ever sounds. Her heart skips a merry little beat.

                "You're back," she replies, and she stands so close that she nearly brushes him. He sets the helmet down and takes her hands, and he kisses the back of each, chaste but lingering. "How was the trip?"

                "Long," he replies. "I'm pleased to be home. I'll tell you about it once I've stabled Minerva. I'll be back in a moment, if you'll wait?"

                Lucina nods, and she leaves him to that. The sun beams onto the courtyard, and the bitterness of the morning subsides under that sunlight. When he returns, he lets her take his hand and lead him fifty yards to the side gate, where she leads him through to the servants' door to the kitchens with her eyes ahead of her. 

                "Lady, where are we––"

                She shushes him, and he quietens immediately. The corridor is dark, only a steep staircase with the only light at the very top. Once the door closes behind them, however, she reaches for him, and he's already reaching for her. Their hands find each other, grasping and bold.

                Lucina pulls him up against her, pinning herself against the wall, and Gerome obliges. His palms coast down her sides to her hips, the thin crepe of her dress bunching under his hands, so close he brushes the hem of her smallclothes.

                "I missed you," she whispers in his ear. 

                "I missed you too," he replies, and then he kisses her.

                And in that moment, all her problems melt away, and Lucina feels really, truly happy.

                There are footsteps up the stairs, and both pause to look. At the top of the stair are two scullery maids, illuminated only by the garden windows and huddled together.

                Lucina knows they can't be seen in the dark, but she stills regardless. Gerome is still, too, his hands under her skirts.

                "What was that?"

                "It was probably just a cat," one maid says to another.

                "Could a cat close the stair door?" The other demands, not so convinced.

                Lucina wiggles from Gerome's grasp, just in case. 

                "Now that that's out of my system," she whispers. "Let's go to the barracks."

                The barracks are a good hike across the castle grounds, but they make good time, walking side by side. Lucina pushes Morgan and her father from her mind for a moment longer, content to be a young woman with her knight for just a moment. They talk a little about what he'd seen on his travels, where his parents had sallied off to, and the topic of Owain and Cynthia's disappearance, but until they cross the threshold of his room in the barracks, it's strictly business.

                Despite having earned a few promotions that would normally get him better quarters, Gerome still sleeps in the barracks. Lucina is sure she had offered to pull strings a thousand times before, but Gerome had always graciously declined. She doesn't offer anymore, not since she'd asked why his parents didn't pull the strings in the first place.

                "Both of them were raised as servants to noble households," Gerome had told her. "I want the discipline that it taught them, and so I would rather earn my rooms in the castle as your knight than be granted them."

                Lucina had thought that rather noble, but also rather absurd: "Is doing our part in saving the world not deserving of that?"

                Gerome had looked at her simply.

                "We have to forge new lives here," he said. "If we are to remain here, then anything after Grima is a new beginning."

                And at that she had kissed him sweetly, because he was the only one of their lot who had shared her weariness for this bittersweet time. The rest seem content even now to pick up their lives and carry on, or capitalize on their fortunes in peace for adventure and grandness. Lucina and Gerome had shared a peculiar call for the abyss and now –- together, it seems –– it is subsiding.

                And now, as usual, Gerome's bunk in the barracks is as neat as they come, the wool bedspread tucked in immaculately around the edges of the straw pallet, his trunk slid under the frame and lined up evenly with the front edge. (Lucina had seen Owain toe it before, knock it askew, only for Gerome to notice immediately and right it again.) His bunkmates will hopefully be out training all day, but it never hurts to be cautious, so Lucina closes the door. Today, however, there's a disturbance in the whole picture: a letter on the pillow. Gerome picks it up right away and sits on the edge of the bed.

                "What is that?" she asks.

                He turns it to look at the handwriting on the front, and then sets it aside. Lucina gives him a curious look.

                "Sir Frederick likes to write me letters for all occasions," Gerome says, quietly. "Every time he leaves, even if it's only for a few days, or when I leave."

                "That's sweet of him," Lucina says.

                "I suppose," he says.

                "Aren't you going to read it?" she asks. She shifts to sit on his knee, comfortable as if he were her throne, and Gerome nudges her cheek with the tip of his nose.

                "I'm to read my father's letter with you on my lap, am I?" he asks. His hand is drifting along her thigh, right up to the juncture of her hip and back down again.

                "I can get off," Lucina offers. His hand keeps her from just moving off anyway.

                "You may stay put," he murmurs. Gerome opens the envelope and places it aside, flipping open the note and returning his hand to her thigh. Her skirt is so thin and his touch so close that she can feel the valley of his broad palm as it splays against her. His expression is a little tense, uncomfortable, eyes running back and forth in narrow rows.

                And then he frowns, his hand freezing in place. Lucina watches his eyes narrow at the letter, and she watches him backtrack and read again.

                "What is it?" she says.

                Gerome pauses, and he closes the note.

                "My father is a sentimental man," he says, simply, and he holds it aside. "He's gone after Cynthia and Owain, you said? And they're missing?"

                Lucina nods. He seems troubled. 

                "And there's no explanation?"

                "None," Lucina agrees. And then, bitterly curious, she asks: "Did he say something?"

                Gerome nods, and he sits up straighter; Lucina has to steady herself with her fingers through the slats of the bunk above to keep from wobbling off his knee. Nose-to-nose with Gerome, she repeats, a little warier for both his silence and the look on his face: "Did he say something?"

                Gerome looks at her so plainly.

                "He should have written this to you, my lady," he says, quietly. She watches him still, curiosity burning, and then he says it: "It's about your mother."

                Suddenly she is not a young woman canoodling with her boyfriend -- she is Princess Lucina once more, and she shifts off of Gerome's lap as swiftly as she had put herself there, right to her feet. She grasps for the letter and Gerome lets her take it, and she opens it and holds it as close to her face as she can without the words going blurry.

                "What do you mean, my mother?" Lucina says, even as her eyes stumble over the words: _My dear son, in a perfect world, my child would never learn of his parents whereabouts from a note,_ and then she's reading aloud: " _News has come from a woman in Plegia who claims to be Ada, and she claims to have taken your friends Owain and Cynthia to 'the house she grew up in'_... oh gods."

                "I don't believe I _could_ have discretion on this matter," Gerome says, concerned.

                Her heart is pounding.

                "You are so loyal to me, Gerome," Lucina says. She feels like she's going to be sick, and it's hard to temper the need to fly to some mount and tear her way across the countryside.

                And then it strikes her hard –– Morgan's dream. The _house._

                "Oh gods," she says, hands up. "I'm sorry, I must go. Right now."

                "What do you intend to do?" Gerome asks.

                "Well, I can't stay here," Lucina says. "I'm going to see my mother."

                So that is exactly what she prepares for.

* * *

                Morgan stares at her.

                "You said my dream was just a _dream_ ," he says, in awe. Lucina can almost see the gears turning in his head, dregging up every little detail. His eyebrows knit together, and the light of the campfire illuminates his eyes like moons. "But how did you...? _What?_ She has a _house_?"

                Lucina looks down at the fire, feeling the weight of the truth lift from her shoulders, and Morgan is so excited that he gets right to his feet. He barrels on without waiting for her to respond: "Lucina! How long did you known!?"

                "Peace, Morgan," she says, _almost_ laughing at his enthusiasm. "I've known about the house for a long time, but then you had the dream, and Gerome told me why Sir Frederick left so suddenly and... and everything fell into place I just knew if we went to the house, we could find her."

                Morgan is pacing suddenly. His eyes are wide, and he marches around their little campfire in a frenzied circle.

                "Why didn't you just _tell_ me?" he says. He pauses, and then gasps. "How do _you_ even know about it? How long have _you_ known?"

                Lucina hesitates, braces herself: "I've known for years."

                "But if she has a house," Morgan says, "When did _Mother_ find out about it?"

                "Listen. When I was a little girl, mother told me about it herself. It's a little cottage in a valley," she says. "I tracked it down in this timeline after I failed to prevent Emmeryn's death. While our parents –– this timeline's parents –– were getting married, settling down." Having her. "So it's here, Morgan. It's in this timeline, too."

                He stares with fascination, and then, second by second, it slips away to horror. He stops pacing, his hands limp at his sides. 

                "But did Mother know?"

                Lucina pauses.

                "She knows now," Lucina says, pragmatically. She must, if she's going there.

                "So wait. Do you mean that…" He trails off, hard. He swallows his breath, and Lucina waits. And then he says, thick with betrayal: "You knew where Mother's house was all this time and you didn't tell her?"

                That stings, but it has long been a secret, and there is some relief in revealing it.

                " _Lucina_ ," Morgan demands.

                "Morgan, you have to understand," she says. "We were at war. If Mother had known a part of her past was out there, it would have distracted her from Grima."

                "But she had no memories," he says, loudly. There's no one around for endless miles, but Lucina winces at the volume nonetheless. "Do you–– do you have _any_ idea what you _did?_ "

                "I know it was unfair to her," Lucina replies, bristling, "but I had to do what was best–"

                "That doesn't make it right!" Morgan snaps.

                "Felling Grima wasn't right?" Lucina demands. She's on her feet suddenly, too, her heart swelling. 

                "That's not what I meant!" Morgan retorts. "You don't understand, because you have no idea what it's like to not have memories! Do you know how cruel that is?! I'd give anything to remember myself, who I was before this!"

                "You wouldn't want to," Lucina replies, harder. "You _don't_ want to remember those things, Morgan."

                Of that, she is sure. Morgan doesn't know what he's talking about. Morgan doesn't remember what they've all been through. 

                "You don't remember how awful it was!" she snaps. "You don't have to remember our parents dying, all the people in our lives going away, one by one. You don't have to remember seeing our nation crumble and the people starve and…" 

                She sighs, deep and angry. There's no point in dregging up more than that, not when it's only been shallowly buried in the first place, but her patience is finally broken. All she wants is to have her mother back, and settle down, and live in peace after all these years of strife, and it can't even be _that_ easy, even when it's now in her reach.

                "You just don't understand how hard it is!" Morgan snarls.

                "This is shameful," Lucina snaps back. She's just yelling at this point. "After everything we've been through, you want to fight about this? _This_ is what you care about –– what I hid to ensure we had a future, rather than our mother potentially having returned? Isn't that what we came out here for?"

                Something on Morgan's face changes. Lucina watches his expression crumple, his mouth clamp shut.

                And then he says, quieter, more calculated: "Why do you always lie to everyone?"

                "Excuse me?"

                "All the time," Morgan says. "You don't tell me things, you never told Mother or Father so many things, you–– you didn't even tell Mother about Grima, even when she was most scared. You don't tell _me_ why we're going, and you don't tell Father, even enough he deserves to know…"

                "Morgan," Lucina protests, but she feels put over a barrel. "I'm not lying to him, I'm trying to protect––"

                "Well, if you'd just told me the truth and I'd known how close I was to finding Mother, _I_ would have wanted to tell him," Morgan says. "But you didn't tell me, so you lied to me, too."

                Maybe she _should_ have told him back at the castle, but she _knew_ he would have run right to their father, so she has to believe this was the right choice. The unselfish choice: do what is best for finding Mother again. Not destroying their father by getting his hopes up, just in case they're wrong, or she _fails._

                But stupidity about finding their mother aside –– she knows Morgan had no plan, no direction, no leads –– he's got a point she can't argue, Lucina realizes. She had denied them both the truth, even if it's not quite the same as a lie. There's no way out of that.

                "We couldn't tell him," Lucina says, tersely. "Don't you see him? Don't you see what he's like now? He doesn't know how this _goes._ He doesn't know how to mourn her. We can't get his hopes up, just in case we're wrong. It would break his heart, Morgan."

                "Ok, so _you_ have all the answers," Morgan says. His chest is heaving. "Good thing he has you, then, doing everything for him. He obviously loves you more anyway, even if all you do is lie."

                "Morgan," Lucina says, crossly, but Morgan doesn't seem to care about her disappointment suddenly. 

                "What do I know, right?” Morgan snaps, and then he gets mean: "You're the worst. You act sad but you never cry. You talk about wanting her back but you had some reason not to go looking every time I said something."

                Lucina looks at him with such frustration.

                “Excuse me?” Lucina asks. “Are we not looking for Mother _right now_?”

                “Yes, but on _your_ terms,” Morgan says. “This isn’t what _I_ planned.”

                “You didn’t _have_ a plan,” Lucina replies, sharply.

                “I did,” Morgan argues, but he must know that’s a losing game: for all his talk of strategy, for all his talk of being a great tactician someday, he hasn’t learned enough yet. Lucina knows he’s had his nose stuck in anything-but-war books and his head lost in dreams and the rest of him has been lazing about. 

                He doesn’t know anything of the _world_ yet.

                “No, you didn’t!” Lucina snaps, and that’s the end of it. “You didn't! You're a sad little boy who misses his mother and thought it would all work out if he just crossed his fingers, but that's not how you accomplish anything!"

                Morgan opens his mouth to reply, but she cuts him off: "And you know what? Just for once _I’d_ like to mourn, too, and finally move on with my life! But I have to take care of you, _and_ Father!" 

                Her eyes feel glassy, and she watches him heave a little breath, watches his expression break a little, and she looks away from him with a tense jaw. Tiredness settles on her, and _guilt_ , but Morgan doesn't bite back.

                "Well, see if I care," he just says.

                He doesn't seem to know what to say after that, and she doubts she'd bother listening anyway. Morgan scowls and she watches him turn away, but there's nowhere to go, no room to stomp off to, so he just stays rooted in place.

                They both to bed angry. There's nothing else they can do.

* * *

                "Good morning," Lucina says.

                Morgan doesn't reply. He just shuffles off into the trees to do his business, and Lucina goes back to her miserable camp breakfast of a handful of blackberries and a bit of cheese. He comes back ten minutes later, still ignoring her, and when she offers him some food, he goes to the packs as if he hadn't heard her.

                She's sorely tempted to say something as he rummages through and makes a mess of her organization, but she doesn't. What would the point be? They're both still angry.

                They pack up camp and wordlessly get back on the trail. Morgan follows at a distance, a good twenty yards behind her horse, which is less marginally more awkward than riding side-by-side, but at least with the miles stretching on ahead of them, Lucina only has to look at what's before her.

                Mother.

                Lucina hasn't been to the house in a good number of years, and she's only made this trip twice before, but the road feels as nostalgic as if she'd taken it a thousand times. Last time, she'd been younger, and she'd just seen her aunt plunge to her death –– a tragedy that was as crushing as it was liberating. On one hand, she'd failed to prevent one of the very things she'd come back for, an event that could have spared the world and stopped a terrible future from marching on, but on the other, she'd been released from that burden. She didn't have to carry the responsibility of saving Emmeryn's life when it could no longer be saved.

                It had been sad, but Lucina had mourned and moved forward, as she'd learned to.

                While her parents had gone back home to Ylisstol to marry and have children in the new halcyon days of peacetime, she'd decided to uncover her own history. With exploring the capitol city off limits –– she couldn't risk being seen or discovered, after all –– then the next best thing was to seek out her maternal grandmother. If she was very lucky, maybe she'd find a friend somewhere along the way, but being on the peripheral of family was the best she could get otherwise.

                She hadn't had much to work on, just stories about apple orchards nestled in the mountains, and a rough map that existed only in her mind's eye. It had been burned into her memories as a child, sitting on her mother's knee in front of a big map, wide-eyed as her mother marked out special places in the world. Places she'd see someday, when she was bigger. She remembers clearly her mother's finger placed over this one part of the mountain chains, her fingernail right below a river. Mother had kissed the top of her head and said: "This is where I grew up. We made long trips to civilization, once a year, to sell apples. That's all we did. Real humble origins, huh?"

                From there, it had taken some research: trade routes, merchant records. She knew if the house existed in this timeline –– as it should –– then it would still have very recent trade records _somewhere_ , as her mother would have lived there until meeting her father. Perhaps she'd find her grandmother, too, or at least what happened to her.

                So she'd found the house, and added another big secret to her belt.

                Now, it's a secret that may be responsible for bringing her mother home, and if she weren't horrified at the prospect of her brother and father upset at her, it would be the most worthwhile secret of all.

                Morgan is slowly catching up to her, after some hours of lagging behind, and he looks at her like he has a question to ask, but he doesn't. She almost invites him to, but she thinks about all the things she has sacrificed and accomplished and how he'll never appreciate what they've all been saved from.

                So she says nothing.

* * *

                There's another whole night and day of silence, the kind of awkward tension that makes Lucina's teeth feel sore. Morgan sulks openly and gives her the silent treatment, but seems just as unwilling to break the ice as she is. All they have, in that time, is a unifying desire to see their mother.

                And if it's true –– if Mother is alive, and waiting for them in the home she grew up in –– then perhaps all of the fighting can be behind them soon.

                That's really all that keeps Lucina going at the moment. There's a pretty daydream that they'll get off their horses in front of the house and run to the door, and that Mother will greet them. Maybe she'll laugh, or maybe she'll cry, or maybe she'll cup their faces in her hands and stroke their hair and kiss their foreheads, but either way everything will be good.

                Lucina is thinking about that as they cook dinner over their campfire, trying to imagine how good it would be to have her hopes come true. Morgan crouches next to her, resolutely quiet, as they wait for their rabbit to finish cooking. Lucina reaches to turn the handle of the pan, but as she does, the wood underneath crumbles and she catches her hand against the hot metal.

                "Ow!" Lucina yelps, withdrawing her hand.

                "Lucina!" Morgan says, the first thing he's said in days, but he jumps to her aid anyway. He seizes the water bladder from their pack and presses its cool side against her hand. Lucina winces but feels oddly relieved.

                At last the ice is broken.

                "I think it's fine."

                Lucina flexes her fingers under the bladder. Little damage done, she's sure, and superficial at worst. There's a beat of silence between them, Morgan's hand over hers with the mark of Naga bright and bold on his skin.

                He swallows hard.

                "I'm sorry about earlier," Morgan says.

                A part of her still wants to be sour. That part wants to tell him that she's not feeling forgiving yet, and that she meant it when she said she hurts as much as he does. But she's her father's daughter, and he always taught her compassion, so she just opens her free arm to him.

                Morgan sinks against her and buries his face against her shoulder.

                "It's okay," she says, resting her chin on the top of his head. She holds him tightly for a moment, hoping that in that instant they can just pretend it never happened, even if the wounds will take time to heal. "Morgan, I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have..."

                "You were right," Morgan says. "I don't want to remember those things, I don't want to know what happened at home. I just want to remember Mother."

                "I know," she says. "I know. And I should have told Mother about the house, but I was so convinced that it was for the better if she didn't know. Forgive me?"

                Morgan pulls away just slightly to nod.

                "I forgive you," he says.

                "Thank you," she says. "I'm sorry about everything, little brother."

                She pets his hair, smoothing it over, even though the back springs up again, as it is wont to do. And then, as if thinking it's childish to be pet like that, he pulls away entirely, and Lucina lets him go. He pats the back of her burnt hand awkwardly.

                "Lucina?" Morgan asks.

                "Yes?"

                "I'm glad Cynthia and Owain didn't elope, them finding Mother and helping her is way better," he says. "And I'd be so mad if I missed it, because Owain has some _very_ cool plans for when they have a wedding."

                Lucina laughs, despite herself.

                "He told you about the fire-blasting cannons and his self-brewed beer, too? And the dancing swans, and the gold carriage covered in flowers."

                Morgan laughs, too.

                "A flower for every single thing he loves about Cynthia! Yeah! And I'm going to be best man."

                Lucina looks at her little brother and smiles.

                Things will be okay.

* * *

                They pack up camp in the small hours of the morning, when it's still dark and dawn is hours away, in hopes of covering a fair bit of ground before the afternoon heat gets to be too much. They'll nap a bit then, at least until they get past the worst of the sun, and then carry on. The horses will appreciate a break, too.

                They're making good time. It's only been a few days, but Lucina remembers their path correctly, it'll only take a few more to get to their destination.

                The house.

                If they're lucky, Mother will already be there, perhaps with Frederick and Owain and Cynthia. She'll be in good spirits, hopefully, and free and alive. 

                It'll make the past four hundred or so days worth it. All the mourning and sadness and sense of loss will be behind them, and they'll have a future to look forward to.

                "Hey Lucina," Morgan says.

                "Hmm?"

                "Is it true that mom burned all our army's ships just to win a battle? And dad _let her_ do it?"

                Lucina lets the laughter bubble up in her before she can stop herself, and she looks over at Morgan with a terse smile –– she's trying to restrain herself, to approach that subject with the seriousness it deserves.

                "Mostly true," she says. "She burned half, along with all of the enemy's. It crippled the Valmese nation, even at the cost of the Plegian ships."

                She thinks about her mother, how her mother had _laughed_ as she hauled her waterlogged self across the deck. Her mother had smiled when Sir Frederick bundled her up in a cloak, and Father had turned his eyes to the ocean aflame with such fierce pride. Lucina had felt awed –– _these_ are the legendary tactics she'd heard so much about? –– but a strange worry had settled on her, too, heavier than soaked wool.

                "You were there for that?" Morgan asks.

                "It was the first time I stood at her side in battle as myself," Lucina remarks, but remembers how she felt: Mother had sent thousands to their deaths without hesitation, sunk their bodies with burning wood and choking ash. If they hadn't burned, they'd drowned, sailor and soldier alike, limbs growing heavier as their lungs filled. 

                It had been a cruel choice; Lucina had wondered, right then, if Grima had already begun to pluck at her mother's mind. But her father had laid his hand on her shoulder,  looked at her with a swelling heart, and he'd said: "This is something the history books will recall! Ada's greatest gambit."

                "Nonsense," her mother had chided. "They'll think of the _Shepherds_. I didn't do this alone."

                Lucina had met her mother's gaze and her mother had smiled, turning her eyes away to laugh. Lucina can imagine that now: her mother's long hair, plastered to her shoulders, and the droplets of water in her eyelashes.

                "What's so funny?" Lucina had asked.

                "I hope Validar seethes when he hears his fleet was so quickly decimated," she had replied. " _Bastard_." 

                She'd never heard her mother speak so harshly, but then again, she had always been a little girl before. Her mother had looked surprised at herself, too, though –– perhaps she'd forgotten herself, forgotten that she was speaking to her daughter.

                "I wish I could've seen that," Morgan says, here, _now_. Lucina pushes the memory down before it carries her away. "It'd be so cool."

                Lucina just nods. Morgan makes an amused sound, lost to some imagination, and then he falls silent. He turns in the saddle and looks behind them, and Lucina doesn't think much of it until he frowns.

                "Morgan?" Lucina asks. "What is it?"

                Morgan squints.

                "I just saw a pegasus."

                Lucina frowns, too. She looks up to the sky behind them, but there's nothing to be seen. It isn't difficult, either -- the sky is fairly open, and pegasus aren't capable of taking to the skies at heights above cloud cover like wyverns are. If it was a pegasus, then it would have to be low enough to be obscured from their sight by the tree canopy.

                "Did it have banners?" Lucina asks.

                "Ylissean colours," Morgan confirms immediately. "Blue banners."

                "You're sure?" she asks, skeptically.

                "That's what I saw!" Morgan exclaims. "Why would I make that up?"

                "I didn't say you did," Lucina replies. "I just want to be sure."

                "Well, _I'm_ sure," Morgan replies.

                "Odds are pretty slim that it would be a bandit who acquired them," Lucina says. "Meaning…"

                Lucina squints what skyline she can see beyond the trees, and she feels a tiredness settle on her. Some years ago, she might have been used to this feeling of skirting her father, but right now, Morgan's words weigh heavily on her. She feels like she's settled much too deeply in being his daughter.

                It was easier to skirt around him and keep him in the dark when he didn't know he had a daughter, or at least a daughter like her. Daughters don't hide, and they aren't supposed to lie. She wonders, sometimes, if that's why Gerome still keeps his parents at arm's length –– it's so much easier to be impartial.

                "Do you think it's one of Father's knights?" Morgan asks.

                "Most likely," Lucina says.

                "I guess they had someone follow us," Morgan says. "But why are they being stealthy? Why don't they just confront us?"

                Lucina looks back over the horizon with a sinking feeling that their father is very angry with them. Morgan might be asking, but she knows it's entirely rhetorical -- the two of them know _exactly_ why.

* * *

                They see Risen down the mountain the next morning, a swarm of them clustered in a camp in the trees, so they detour — a longer path, but only by enough that it's worth it to avoid the risk. 

                "I'm surprised there's still any Risen at all," Lucina says.

                "Well, there's trade routes, right?" Morgan says.

                "Yes," Lucina says. "They're quite far, though, and it's been almost unusable since the most recent war with Plegia. I didn't think there was anything out there to be preyed on."

                "I guess they don't have any directions, without Grima," Morgan wonders.

                "I don't know, but I don't want to find out," Lucina replies. "Let's keep an eye out."

                "Aww, we've routed a whole lot of them before," he says. "I don't think we need to worry."

                "You can't be too careful," Lucina replies.

                The detour doesn't take too long, but they spend much of the day in the saddle trading stories to pass the time anyway. Lucina isn't much of a storyteller, but Morgan more than compensates, filling her head with grand tales about magic swords and hero-kings, some of which she has heard before and others she is sure are made up on the spot. There are always the old tales of dragons to be told, as well as all the ages of ancient warring kingdoms, but Morgan's best fanciful tales always involve magic, people turning into things and things turning into people and so on.

                And despite the argument –– despite her choices, her desire to be strong, and her denial of the truth –– she loves her brother dearly, and it is a joy to see him so delighted. The fog of their argument passes quickly, leaving them just as close as before, if not more so. She looks at her little brother and smiles, feeling that everything will be right, though she still keeps casting her eyes to the sky to look for any errant pegasi. (Nothing, with not a hair of mane nor hook.)

                It's around dinnertime that Morgan runs out of stories and just starts mining _her_ for memories –– _what's the most trouble we got into together? What's the biggest fight we ever got into? What's something funny that happened when I was little?_ Morgan does this often –– a natural reaction to not having any memories of his own, she's sure –– but there's often little Lucina can share with him about the two of them. In her timeline, the age gap between the two of them had been much more significant; she can't fill his head with stories that don't exist, and talking about the past is painful anyway, so she often has to rebuff him. But after a brief hunt that snares them a rabbit, he tries again, and she rebuffs him again, and then after dinner he tries once more.

                "What's your favourite memory with Mother?" Morgan asks.

                Lucina sighs, somewhat wistfully. Might as well.

                "My favourite?" she says, pondering it slowly. "Hmm. My favourite was seeing her alive again for the first time, I think, but that's not really a memory _with_ her."

                "Something with her!" Morgan repeats. "Nothing sad."

                Lucina shifts down to lay next to him, stretching out in the grass with Falchion at her side. The sheathed blade is so long that it runs from her toes to her jaw, one arm looped around it. It's an oddly comforting presence, the weight of steel against her shoulder.

                "Well," she says, "I don't think any memories of her are completely free of sadness, given how things are.”

                Morgan might see things differently, but then again, he's said before that he loves Mother intensely enough that her disappearance cannot possibly override the joy of his memories of her. He groans at her now.

                “Luci.”

                She ponders it a moment.

                “I suppose when she gave me my room again,” Lucina says, finally. "In this timeline."

                "She gave you a room?"

                Lucina nods, her eyes fixed on the sky above.

                "I guess we hadn't found you yet," she says.

                "Oh," Morgan says. "That's a weird favourite. Why?"

                Lucina scoffs and waves him off.

                "Fine," she says. "I won't tell you, if it's so weird."

                "Lucina," Morgan groans. "Tell me!"

                "Not if you're just going to make fun," Lucina replies.

                "I'm sorry!" Morgan says. "Don't be so thin-skinned, it's just not what I expected. Tell me about it!"

                Lucina sighs at him, but she relents: “After the Valmese war, we all went home together. Father had Mother and I ride ahead of the rest of the convoy so we could get there a few days earlier, and I was nervous. I didn't know if I was ready, but Mother had been apart from the baby for a while and wanted to hurry. I didn't want to impose, showing up in the baby's life, but the first thing Mother did was have the nursery turned into my room again.”

                She sees Morgan turn his head to her out of the corner of her eye, but she keeps her gaze fixed on the stars above. In the great bowl of the valley, the dim light of their campfire is swallowed up by the inky blackness of the sky and the thousands of pinhead stars above them. The moon sits directly above them, as if the valley were the center of the universe.

                “I was so worried about replacing Ryn, about taking her life,” Lucina muses. “I had promised to leave after everything, but I guess Father told Mother what I'd said, because she did everything she could think of. She tracked down everything she thought I'd like to have, and she made me pick colours for the new tapestries. Ryn and I slept in Mother's bed until Father caught up with us, but after a new bedframe had been commissioned, she tucked me in every night like I was a girl again..."

                Lucina laughs a little.

                “I felt bad that she went to all that trouble for me when I hadn't planned to stay, but I felt so loved and wanted, to have her try so hard to make me feel at home in this time..."

                "So you stayed," Morgan says.

                Lucina nods. 

                "So I stayed."

                “Well, I’m glad you stayed,” Morgan says. He nudges her with his elbow. “I know you don’t always feel like it, but you belong here.”

                “I think so too,” she agrees. Then she smiles, suddenly, pointing up. “Oh, look, Morgan! There’s the White King constellation –– how pretty, normally it’s so hard to spot.”

                Morgan follows the line of her finger, to the cluster of stars. She wonders if he remembers the two of them laying in the grass with Mother, once, and her pointing out the same constellation, or if it’s just a little coincidence.

                Or maybe –– just maybe –– it means something, if only just to her.

* * *

                Both of them had fallen asleep under the stars, the fire burning low and the cooler night air a welcome reprieve from the heat of the day. The grass is a surprisingly comfortable bed, but it doesn't last. Lucina wakes to Morgan shaking her frantically but without a word. She's up and alert in an instant; this is no little brother climbing into her bed after a bad dream.

                "What is it?" she says at a whisper.

                Morgan points.

                Lucina sees their glow first, and then the dark shapes of their bodies: Risen. They're a good bit up the hill, rippling with dark magic and making their way across the terrain. She's certain they haven't been spotted yet, but there's no chance in the world they won't be. She ponders their options –– flee and hide, leaving the camp and all their supplies as the Risen's mercy, or standing their ground and fighting.

                She knows which has better odds in the long-term.

                She reaches to her side and finds Falchion without even looking, as though her skin and the leather-wrapped handle are drawn to each other. Morgan is up on his feet, and Lucina follows suit. 

                "Get my breastplate," she says, but Morgan already has it, and she armors herself with his help as rapidly as she can. By time the last buckle is snugly done up, they've definitely been spotted. The misshapen creatures lumber in their direction, down the hill. 

                Lucina looks up at the number of Risen on the mount and she thinks, for one fleeting instant, that she has made a grave mistake, coming out here with Morgan. She should feel confident, Morgan on her left and her Falchion on her right, but the monsters looking down on them are numerous. She and her brother have the most excellent parentage two young warriors could hope for, even if Morgan is still untested. She is responsible for protecting him, and with Falchion held aloft and shining, she can do that.

                But it's going to be tight.

                "We cut through," Lucina whispers. She adjusts her buckler on her arm and shifts, her back to her little brother. Morgan has a tome in hand but his eyes on the Risen. His mouth is set.

                "Two from the left, with the axe," Morgan mutters. "He's lamed. You could take him and then the one to the right quickly."

                "Got it," Lucina says, though she had made that observation a moment earlier.

                "Then go right," Morgan says. "That one's got a weird arm."

                "His right? Or mine?" Lucina asks.

                "Uh, his," Morgan says. "I'll take the left column."

                "Ranged? You'll keep some distance, right?"

                "Yes," Morgan says.

                And then that's all the time for assessment. The first swarm is starting down the hill, shambling faster than usual on the incline, and Lucina feels the muscle-burning, blood-pumping adrenaline of battle pick up in her heart.

                It's been a while.

                She meets the hoarde at a charge, screaming with Falchion behind her, and she swings it two-handed into the first Risen that gets in her range. Falchion sings as it is dragged through sinewy flesh with the ease of a letteropener on vellum, and she doesn't stop moving –– she goes from one to another, watches a third get engulfed in flames, parries once, twice and then goes in for the kill again. 

                A bead of sweat rolls down her forehead, off her brow. It barely misses her eye as she plunges Falchion forward again. The Risen are a dying lot, and their decaying bodies only grow weaker as time ticks by in a world without Grima, but in numbers like these, even Lucina feels herself pushed.

                "Lucina!" Morgan cries. 

                She turns her head to see Morgan at very close quarters with a Risen who is quickly gaining ground. Morgan raises an arm with a fire spell, once and then twice, taking long steps backwards as he goes, but the flames don't slow the Risen down. Somewhere else behind her, one of the horses screams –– a Risen has gotten it.

                So without a thought, Lucina parries off a Risen and loses ground to get closer to Morgan. Losing ground is dangerous, and she never likes to do it, but with the concern that Morgan won't get himself out of trouble, she does it without another thought.

                Falchion sings once more as it sends another Risen to the dirt. Slickened with black blood, it no longer shines in the dark, but Lucina will continue to slay with it just the same.

                "Be careful!" she snaps at Morgan, turning her back to him again to return to the other Risen.

                Then Lucina feels something very cold, suddenly, and she's stopped in her tracks by a sharp tug to her gut, one so powerful her body seems to tense up all on its own. Her feet are wired in place, her grip on Falchion tight but her blade stilled. _What…?_

                She looks down and sees six inches of _something_ coming out of her side, a sharp tip wedged under the plates over her left hip, where her placart should be. But she'd left it with Gerome, hadn't she? 

                She's been pierced by a blade, she realizes, well before she even feels it. 

                There is a blade running through her. 

                Six inches of cold metal jutting out, another six laced through her guts.

_Oh._

                Lucina watches the blade disappear, sliding out through her as the Risen withdraws, and she stumbles through the next two steps: one to turn her, the next to push her through the Risen's space, and she sticks the creature with force. Falchion slides through flesh, in and then sideways. Lucina screams. The Risen falls. One more.

                She takes three more steps, moving with pure adrenaline, and she raises Falchion for one last time, but the last Risen writhes in flames. Lucina turns to look at Morgan, who is breathing heavily, tome still glowing with magic. He looks around them.

                "That's all of them?" he says.

                "Yes," she says.

                Lucina puts a hand over her side, instinctively, and she feels the damaged rings of maille touch her raw flesh. The pain hits her so suddenly that she crumples to her knees with a gasp, dropping Falchion.

                "Lucina!" Morgan gasps. He's at her side by an instant, crouching down with a hand low on her back, but he startles when his hand comes away wet –– the entrance wound. He clasps his hand back over the spot immediately. "Did... Did you get _stuck_?"

                He didn't _see?_ It must have been very fast, even though it had felt like an eternity. Lucina looks at Morgan with a firm smile. She must be calm.

                "Don't panic," she says. "It's not that bad."

                "Not bad?" Morgan says. He cranes his neck to look at her, to see where her hand is. "Lucina, it went right through. You're bleeding a lot!"

                "It doesn't hurt too much," Lucina says.

                "That could be shock," Morgan argues, but he's fretting already. He looks around them rapidly, for wherever their packs are. "He must have missed your kidneys, though. That's lucky."

 _Lucky._ If they'd been pierced, she'd probably be in enough pain to just die on the spot. _Don't think about that._

                "It'll be okay, Morgan, please don't panic," Lucina says. "It's just a flesh wound, I don't think he got anything vital."

                " _Flesh still bleeds out_ , Lucina," Morgan says, seriously. She knows he's right. She knows he's going to impress upon her one thing, any second now, but he says it before she can finish the thought: "Can we still make it back? We _have_ to turn back."

                "It'll be fine," Lucina says. "We keep going forward; Mother is there. And the others, they can help us."

                " _If_ you're right," Morgan says.

                "Are you suddenly doubting me?"

                "No," Morgan says, vehemently. "But things just got bad."

                Morgan watches her, half his face obscured by the deep hood of his cloak. In that instant, Lucina feels a deep regret for dragging him into this: he is only fifteen, and skilled as he is with a tome and short blade, he's not the soldier she is. Even their mother, as formidable as she is, could be felled by such a wound.

                She wonders if her mother could do anything, even if they could get to her in time.

                Morgan makes sure her hand is over the exit wound firmly.

                "Keep hold pressure on it," he says. "I gotta get the packs."

                Lucina sits there in the dirt, clutching her two bloody wounds front-to-back, and she looks at Falchion laying on the ground. What a thing, she thinks –– the legendary blade carelessly dropped in the dirt, the crown princess of Ylisse stuck and wounded. 

                She could die out here.

                "Morgan?" she says.

                "Yeah?" he replies, as he jogs here and there across camp. 

                "We have to bandage this and keep moving now," she says. "We keep going, we can't wait."

                Morgan looks at her, and in the dark, she can't quite see his expression. He hesitates to respond, as he's rapidly bundling their things together, and then he says:

                "You're right. Maybe if we reach the house, we can make it."

                They're down a horse, the camp is scattered and night still drags on with another mountain — and another day — to go before they reach the house. Morgan ends up bandaging her with strips of her cape, and he gets her and Falchion up on the remaining horse with him, and off they go, leaving a mess and a dying fire behind them.

                They have to get to the house.

* * *

                Lucina hasn't felt such pain in a while. 

                The last time she felt like this was four-hundred or so days ago, when Mother died again, though that was a very different sort of pain. She'd laid down to sleep those nights thinking her heart would stop from the ache alone, that losing her mother for the second time was too much to bear. She'd curled herself around Morgan and let him cry into her chest, and she'd let all the sadness flood up in her like a well and then closed a lid on it. 

                She'd expected for a long time to come through this whole nightmare without a mother, but then, for a brief glittering time, she'd believed she could have that, too. In the end it hurt even worse to be teased, but she couldn't let that shake her. 

                There would be no tears from Lucina.

                And so she'd never really cried about it, or even mourned much in front of father, not even once. Over the months she'd gotten the distinct impression that he'd _wanted_ her to, but despite the growing impulse to throw herself into her father's arms and cry it out, she hadn't. She couldn't entirely explain why. It couldn't be pride; she'd cried to him before. It wasn't for him; if anything, he might have felt stronger to be able to care for her in the wake of the sacrifice.

                Maybe it was just the idea that if she started now, she might never stop.

                Or maybe, in the end, it is because she wants to save her tears for her mother, for once in her life. If her mother is back, then she can let it all go soon.

                "Luci?" Morgan asks, voice small. He looks at her over his shoulder, and Lucina tries to sit up a little better so she isn't leaning against his skinny frame so much, but the strength has gone from her spine. 

                "Yes?" Lucina replies, through gritted teeth.

                "Please don't die and leave me out here all alone," he says.

                "It's going to be okay, Morgan," Lucina says. Truth be told, though, the pain is bad, worse than what she'd have expected. (But really, who can predict what it'd feel like to be reamed through by an old blade?)

                "But are YOU going to be okay?" Morgan asks.

                He looks at her with such worry. He's such a little boy sometimes, as if losing his memories robbed him of the experiences that forced him to grow up so fast. She's always been happy for him, for that –– she'd never found out what fate had befallen him in her own timeline, after their mother's body had snatched him from the cradle. What if…?

                Lucina pushes that thought down.

                "I'll be okay, Morgan," she says. "Mother's going to be at the house, and Cynthia will be with her, and she's such a good healer… and Frederick, he's always prepared, he'll have supplies for us… and Cherche, she can heal…"

 _If_ , that is, Frederick and Cherche even found who they were looking for.

                "Are we at least close?" he asks.

                The house is still many miles away, beyond another mountain. Truth be told, she's not sure how much longer she can stay in the saddle, or if she can make it over the last mountain, let alone to the house. The grip of her thighs on the saddle isn't much to hold her there, nor are Morgan's shoulders much to slouch against. Every time the horse walks over uneven ground she wobbles, threatens to topple over, even on top of the agony of being jolted.

                "Morgan," she says. "I need to concentrate. Listen to me, okay?"

                "I'm listening," he says. 

                "We're going to get over that mountain," she says, "and then it'll be a day's ride from there, maybe. I'm going to be alright, but if you keep going as straight as you can, you'll find it. You'll see a lot of apple trees, okay? The worst that could happen has already passed and we're going to make it, okay?"

                "That's not the worst thing that could happen," Morgan protests. "The worst that could happen is that you could die, leaving me out here all alone!"

                "Morgan," Lucina says, at a low hiss, "that's not going to happen."

                She turns her eyes to the land ahead, trying to pay attention on something that isn't the rocking of the horse's gait and Morgan nervous in front of her. Her vision is going, though –– hazy, maybe from pain. Agony. 

                "You just keep going West, and we'll get––"

                The horse lurches up the slope and her voice dies, her mouth open in a silent scream. She can't think, pain coursing through her until entire body feels like one large wound. 

                "Luci?" Morgan says, concerned. He holds onto her arm almost fruitlessly, but she's tipping in the saddle, and she can feel it screaming in her nerves. She clutches her side so tightly it hurts worse, as if that pain could shock her awake, but she only grits her teeth harder.

                "Luci!" Morgan repeats. His voice hitches higher, and in that instant, Lucina wants to scold him: _don't cry. Don't you dare cry. Don't you—_

                She starts to tip to the side. She sees a familiar figure up the hill alongside them, just over the rise.

                "Mother," she says, and then she falls from the horse, everything black before she even hits the ground.


	9. (Ad)ventured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he and Cynthia took up his Aunt's call, Owain found himself at the crux of two paths. If a venture is a calculated undertaking for the purpose of gain, then Owain has certainly ventured much. But if an adventure takes you into the wild unknown, then an adventure is what he's been on for his entire life. Both, he thinks, are the undertakings of heroes, but only one can grant him certainty about the future.
> 
> After all: their destination is just over the rise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in about a week, whoo!

.

 

 

                The past few days have been interesting, to say the least.

               Owain –– Hero of the Ages, a Duke of Ylisse and now Retainer to the Returned Feller of Grima (he's still working on that one) –– has yet to tire of their journey, but he could admit to a certain... _fatigue_. Now, evidently those two things are at least somewhat related, but he can point to one thing for the fatigue.

               Sir Frederick runs the camp like a tyrant.

               While true, his Auntie _had_ maintained some semblance of order and duty — the camp wasn't going to run itself, after all — Sir Frederick marches them twice as hard to compensate. Owain wonders, vaguely, if it is recompense for their desertion, but he doesn't dare ask.

               And that's a whole other matter! Sir Frederick also possesses a tyrannical _killjoy_ nature, and so his arrival has sorely reminded Owain that they face some serious matters back in Ylisse.

                _Sigh._

               Fortunately, today starts off on a good foot. Fatigue for the rigors of military life aside, his Byronic ennui wanes somewhat when he wakes up to see a butt nearby. 

               And it's not just any butt — it's the butt of his girlfriend, crouched down over her satchel to rummage, naked as the day she was born and evidently unaware of how close she is. If he reached out, he could poke her, and likely startle her out of her skin.

               Which he does, of course.

               Cynthia lets out a rousing yelp and leaps to her feet, nearly colliding with the tent wall, and Owain just laughs. He laughs even as she seizes his pillow out from under his head and descends upon him with it to smother, laughing all the while.

               "You scared the daylights out of me!" she squeals, and Owain can no longer see her with the pillow over his face, but he keeps laughing and tussling with her.

               "My dearest!" Owain says, muffled. "I couldn't help myself, it was not long from my–– grasp–– the–– juiciest––– PEACH!"

               "That makes my butt sound huge!" she replies, laughing, and then she raises the pillow again. She's practically astride him, his bedroll preventing any undue premarital contact, and he looks up at her and her pert little breasts and her messy ponytails and he thinks: _O, what a way to die._

               "It is intended to make you sound sweet," he says.

               Cynthia snickers, lowering the pillow, and Owain reaches to take her face between his palms. Her skin is soft. He sits up to kiss her most indelible lips, and just before they do, Sir Frederick pokes his head in the door. Cynthia grimaces but does not move, both of them frozen in place.

               "Get dressed for breakfast," he orders, apparently completely unphased by the general nakedness going on. And then, as if reading Owain's mind: "And do not make me rethink our sleeping arrangements, I _will_ segregate this camp by gender if the need arises."

               And then he withdraws his head. Owain hears Auntie shout something at Sir Frederick, but he doesn't hear what.

               Cynthia laughs, half embarrassed and half incredulous, and she looses herself from his grip to get to her feet and seize her dress from the ground.

               "Good thing my butt is out basically all the time in this dress," Cynthia replies. "Or else that would have been super embarrassing."

               Owain just laughs.

               Even with potential desertion charges looming, they're on such a grand adventure that life is pretty much perfect right now.

 

* * *

 

               "So what do you think will happen if we get court martialed?" Owain asks over breakfast, around a mouthful of apple. "Do you think they'll still let us get married?"

               "Are there even weddings in prison?" Cynthia asks. She's got a faraway look to her eyes, but that's probably because she's thinking about excellent things like heroism and freedom and _justice_ , not the prospect of being imprisoned for doing a perfectly just thing like escorting the Exalt's wife back from the dead.

               Truthfully, Owain doesn't think anything like that will happen, but who knows what challenges life will throw in their paths?

               "Well, if Auntie and Uncle cannot pardon us, then we will escape and live together on the run," he says. "We will find ourselves a new trade as wandering heroes, helping the downtrodden and then carrying on until the whole world knows of us."

               "Don't you think you should have thought of that before abandoning the army?" Sir Frederick is frowning deeply, and hardly touching his own apple. (Owain doesn't blame him; he's sick of apples, too.)

               "Don't be silly," Auntie says. "If Chrom won't pardon you for whatever stupid reason, I'll knock sense into him."

               "You're my favorite auntie," Owain says, glowingly.

               "Not much of a compliment when you only have one," Cynthia says.

               "Nonsense! I meant: you're my favourite –– comma! –– Auntie."

               But Auntie smiles anyway, her eyes fixed on the tome in her lap. 

               "Favourite or not, I'm a strange aunt to have, I'm sure," she says.

               There's a moment of silence, Owain contemplating the judicial system he has never once paid attention to before, and Cynthia thinking gods-know-what and Sir Frederick looking, as usual, _sour._

               "You know, you do seem different," Cynthia says to Auntie, suddenly. "You... I dunno! Just different."

               "I feel different," Auntie says. "But go on. What's so different about me now?"

               "I don't know," Cynthia says. "I just think you used to be such a sad lady, always with books and war. You never sat with us like this! And now you're so... So light!"

               Owain chuckles.

               "What Cynthia means to say," Owain says, "is that you have undergone a great trial, dearest Auntie, and from that peril you have forged enlightenment!"

               "Enlightenment," Auntie hums, pleasantly, "what a good word for it."

               Owain puffs up a little, proud. 

               "And what do you intend to do with this enlightenment, Auntie?" Owain asks. "Perhaps write a book of your daring exploits, your most ingenious battles?"

               "I could, but it'd be nice to step away from battle for a little," she says. "Maybe I'll travel for leisure."

               "Let's hope this enlightenment doesn't keep you from being home with your husband and children," Sir Frederick says, and Owain watches Auntie give him one of those kill-him-with-kindness looks.

               "Frederick," she says. "The weather's nice, you're not chasing after a thousand new recruits. There's beautiful mountains everywhere. Owain has written some wonderful poetry these past few days. I will absolutely go home, so could you please enjoy yourself for once, for what we have?"

               Sir Frederick doesn't reply. Owain and Cynthia share a look of discomfort. Owain had not known Ada long as an adult, but he thinks there are some remains of the woman he remembered as a child. In the timeline of his birth, Uncle Chrom had been slain when he was just barely old enough to understand death, and his Aunt Robin not long after. He'd seen her only once after that, until, of course, meeting Auntie "Ada" -- the name she'd taken for herself in this universe, in a world where she had lost much of her memory. She'd been indistinguishable then from how she looked the last time he had seen her, and so she had remained frozen in his mind, never-aging, just like her husband.

               For her to have her memories now is a strange affair, and he is equally fascinated and confused to have someone from this timeline who suddenly recalls holding him as a baby in another. 

               "Well said, Auntie," Owain says.

               She smiles at him like she did when he was a little boy, and it strikes him that she might be proud of him, of the way her nephew has grown.

               "This is not some fun camping trip," Sir Frederick points out. 

               "Sure it is," Auntie says. "We _are_ camping, aren't we? Give my dear nephew a break."

               "It's strange to see you so adored by her," Sir Frederick remarks to Owain.

               Owain can't help but smirk.

               "Am I not _always_ adorable, Sir Frederick?" he asks.

               Sir Frederick gives him an unamused look, but he reaches to clap him on the shoulder.

               "Every bit your mother," he says.

               Owain loves to hear how much he is like his mother. He imagines most young men his age would abhor such a thing, but for Owain it is the _finest_ thing. 

               Sir Frederick just sighs at them.

 

* * *

 

             Some nights later, while everyone is sitting by the campfire, he's still thinking about the future and what it might hold.

               "Even if we aren't charged, do you think I'll be stripped of my titles?" Owain asks. He sounds more somber than he'd like, but Auntie doesn't seem to worry much about that. "Well, the official titles? I'll always have my own titles, of course..."

               "I get a say in it, don't I?" Auntie asks, somewhat rhetorically.

               "I imagine so," he says.

               "Then no, you won't be," Auntie Ada says. "I'll even pull rank and get you an extra one."

               Owain laughs, and so does Cynthia. She's sat between Auntie Ada's knees, her blonde hair loose around her face. Auntie is brushing it out in sections — Owain doesn't know what it is about girls and hair brushing, but he's seen Cynthia and Severa spend hours brushing out each other's hair on more than one occasion. _Hours._ It helps that Severa has a great deal of hair, but...

               "What rank?" Owain asks. He can dream.

               "Homecoming Escort," Auntie says. "Or King of Plegia, or something."

               Owain laughs, loud and pleased.

               "King, hmm? That would get in the way of adventure," Owain says. "I shan't be trapped in court, I don't think." He ponders it for a moment. "Is Ylisse to annex Plegia, Auntie?"

               "I don't know," Auntie replies. "You know more of Ylisse's plans than I do."

               "I don't think Plegia has any means to govern itself anymore," Owain says.

               Sir Frederick looks over to them, then.

               "It may be annexed," he says. "Lord Chrom had been deliberating on a decision for some time now –– with any luck, he's made his decision by now."

               "And that's why you have armies out here," she replies.

               Sir Frederick nods.

               "Well, if we did, now would be a good time," Auntie says. "Before any of the nations of Valm have their feet under them again, and try to claim territory overseas. Cut a deal with Ferox for some of the territory for their role in the war. The ethics are suspect, though. We didn't conquer them, so we'd be taking advantage of Grima's feast. They'd probably revolt, they'd certainly hate us."

               "Thinking like a true tactician," Sir Frederick says. "I'm sure Lord Chrom would appreciate your counsel."

               "He can appreciate it a couple weeks from now," Auntie replies.

               Sir Frederick gets up and walks away. Owain watches his Auntie roll her eyes, but she keeps brushing out Cynthia's hair. Owain and Cynthia share a tense look -- neither of them care to tangle that close in building an empire, nor in getting too far between Auntie and Sir Frederick. The two of them are giants, legendary war heroes that dance around each other all day and yet are so attuned to each other that they never fall out of step, and when they're not being nostalgic together, they're having awful tiffs. 

               Owain can't pretend to be able to follow it, but he admires Sir Frederick's commitment, at least. He may fold Auntie's clothes and serve Auntie's meals with a particular discomfort, but he still does it. He knows it is his duty, and he follows through. Commitment to Exalt runs deep.

               Thinking of Exalt-y things, however, Owain is hesitant to think that his uncle would even have empire-building in his constitution. Exalt Chrom has never seemed interested in subsuming Plegia as his own, even if the military is already doing a fair job of populating Plegia with Ylisseans. In fact, he seems to approach Plegia with a fair bit of anger and disdain –– it would likely frustrate him to no end to have to deal with it on a daily basis, or invite closer contact.

               Auntie, though. Auntie seems to pity Plegia, but perhaps she feels some ownership of Plegia as it is.

               "Auntie," he says, once Frederick is back off at the tents, out of earshot. "Would _you_ annex Plegia?"

               She looks at him then, unperturbed by the question, but she gives it consideration. Owain just waits, patiently.

               "I think so," she says. "I need a lot more information, but when we get back to Ylisstol, I'll be speaking to Chrom about it frankly."

               "I don't think he intends to, Auntie," Owain admits. "He is a great man, but I don't think his ambition stretches into conquering."

               Auntie shakes her head.

               "It doesn't," she replies. "It would make him too much like this father… but it might be the best option for the land."

               Owain nods.

               "It may be," he agrees. "But you technically are its princess, are you not? Do you have some claim to it without war?"

               Auntie pauses. He realizes how little he knows about the land, and how isolated Ylisse is from any cultural exchange. Even with the Cabal, they'd hardly done much more than patrol and secure regions, moved Ylissean settlers in and then carried on to the next abandoned village. 

               "Plegia doesn't have princesses, Owain," she says. "Their royalty doesn't run in bloodlines, it runs theocratically. Their ruler is whoever is _divinely_ decreed fit to rule. Validar's rule guaranteed me nothing but a chance at nepotism, and that evidently wasn't worth much. Now, though, after having slain their god and left the population so fragmented, I doubt they'll be able to continue the old system."

               Auntie pauses.

               "As a people, they may very well be dead. They'll probably survive as a diaspora for some generations, maybe a few centuries, but their own god ended them, and we rang the death toll for them."

               He feels a shiver of a chill run down his spine at the thought of conquest, and he is inwardly proud of himself for asking, for being trusted with such a topic. Auntie has always been careful with this subject, and it feels wonderful to be spoken to as an adult, rather than as her young nephew. 

               "Would _you_ want to rule them, though, Auntie?"

               Auntie stops brushing Cynthia's hair in favour of running her bare fingers through it, tousling the locks back out of her face and then starting to plait it at the temples. Cynthia looks lost in thought.

               "Before I found you two, when I was moving amongst Plegian refugees," Auntie says, "I found myself at a curious impasse. Until that point, I'd spent years wondering whether I was Plegian virtue of my birth, or Ylissean virtue of my experiences." 

               Owain nods.

               "So I was sitting in a camp one night, and there were some dancers," she says. "Every night, the refugees would play music on salvaged instruments and the dancers would perform around the fire, and it was just... it was _beautiful_ , but it was _strange,_ because despite having the memories of two lifetimes, I felt nothing for it. I knew some of the folk songs, but there was no nostalgia, no sense of belonging, nothing."

               "You weren't raised in Plegia after all," Owain offers. "You were raised by your mother in isolation, at the house."

               "Precisely, but I still remember the years of _imagining_ the Plegians as having been my people, back when I had no memories to speak of. It's a hard truth to know something you clung to as part of your identity just was just imagination and nothing more," she says. "I put up with Tharja, feeling she was my only personal connection to Plegia, I had so many long talks with Henry about it. I thought about it all so much in those quiet years between the Valmese war and my death. And in the end, all of it was a fantasy imagining of my own history, but no closer to the truth than many of my favourite novels."

               She pauses.

               "When Validar told me that my mother stole me from my cradle… well. I still thought she was in Plegia, evidently. How wrong that theory was."

               She pulls Cynthia's hair into a ponytail, eyes low, and Owain realizes Cynthia's eyes are glassy. He feels a tightness in his chest too.

               "It was like all of it was a great story I told myself to help myself sleep at night, knowing I had a past, even if I couldn't remember it," Auntie says. "You know, Chrom and I used to fight about it sometimes."

               Owain can't imagine his aunt and uncle fighting about anything, but he supposes he and Cynthia have their own disagreements, so it must be at least possible.

               "I think he really resented my interest in Plegia, because my being Plegian meant he would have to confront how he sees them. He wouldn't be able to see them as innately barbaric, or warmongering, or cruel if I was one of them. So it was always easier for him to pretend I wasn't, and that was difficult for both of us."

               Owain sees Cynthia's face alight with concern –– _do they really need to know these things?_ –– but he doesn't dare acknowledge it or interrupt. He gets the impression that it's not often Auntie is honest with people like this, but open wounds tend to bleed, and sometimes there's no stopping them.

               "And then I saw the dancers and I just felt empty, hollow," she carries on. "It wasn't real! I loved Ylisse and committed myself to it so fiercely not because I was obligated to as a Shepherd, but because it had _always_ been my nation. My mother had kept us on the very fringe of society, but it was Ylissean merchants and villages and peoples we connected with."

               She ties Cynthia's hair with a ribbon.

               "I know my real past now," she says. "I hope it's one that can ground me, going forward."

               "So what's going to happen to Plegia, then?" Cynthia asks, low and quiet, and she cranes her neck to look up. "When you go home to Exalt Chrom and get back with him?"

               Auntie looks down at her, warm and fond.

               "We'll do what we can to ensure the best for Plegia," she says. "If he'll have me back, that is."

               "Why wouldn't he?" Owain asks.

               Auntie looks a little sad at that.

               "I don't know," she admits. "It's just a feeling."

               Owain knows she must have her reasons for feeling that way, but he looks at Cynthia and feels his love for her so fiercely that he thinks there's nothing in the world she could possibly do to make him drive her away. He can't imagine it being any different for Uncle Chrom.

               "It'll be okay, Auntie," Cynthia says, sweetly. "You're back now. That means everything is going to be alright!"

               Auntie just nods, but when they all retire for the night, Owain and Cynthia lie still in their beds listening to Sir Frederick and Auntie in the next tent, talking in hushed voices, just soft enough to be unintelligible. Afraid, then consoling. Regretful, then reassuring.

               Owain just thinks of another poem: 

 

> _The babe is at peace within the womb;_
> 
> _The corpse is at rest within the tomb:_
> 
> _We begin in what we end._

 

* * *

 

               And so that is how the days pass: equal parts love and comraderie with tension and thinly-veiled sorrow.

               When he and Cynthia had first found Auntie Ada, led to her hiding place on the very outskirts of their patrol by a little yellow dragon, they had both been stunned. Owain had felt a little breathy, a little overwhelmed. To see her return had been something remarkable, a miracle thrust forth to them by the Gods and good fortune.

               They'd found out the truth of who she was when Auntie Ada had told them about a story she had read them as a children whilst on a picnic, and Owain had felt quite startled, suddenly. He'd looked at his Auntie, searched her face to see if she'd realized what she had said and why it would startle him and Cynthia both, but she'd just watched them carefully. She was his aunt, then, honestly and truly. He'd felt all coiled up and ready to burst, and he'd hugged her so boisterously and wept while doing so, and Auntie had just stiffly held him and consoled him –– not that he'd needed cosoling, exactly, but to have her back with her memories restored, even if they had been restored _strangely_ , was a greater thing still.

               The life of a hero is nothing if not dramatic. Owain takes that to heart, at least, that his life can be blessed with time travel and miracles and dragons and great feats of heroism and––

               There's a rustle in the trees. That's concerning, particularly when he's on patrol and his primary thought should be of looming danger, but then Cynthia lunges quite spectacularly from a treetop and pins him to the ground. 

               (Though he's sure his innate Cynthia Sense kept him from using his impeccable reflexes to slice his "attacker" in half, he has to commend her. She is very, very sneaky, even if she didn't actually surprise him at all.)

               (Or, if she did –– which he's not admitting to! –– it wasn't in a _frightening_ way.)

               His face is almost entirely in the dirt.

               "Wow, I totally spooked you there!" Cynthia exclaims, sitting atop him. He chuckles, lifting his head.

               "I must disagree," Owain replies. "You most certainly did not!"

               "You screamed," Cynthia insists. "I heard it. It was high pitched. Almost a _shriek_."

               "If even the slightest noise left my mouth," Owain insists, "then it was surely the low, manly growl. Perhaps the manliest you've ever heard."

               Cynthia laughs, still sat on him, and if she just nudged in with her heels, she could ride him like a pony –– not that he's thinking about strange things like that. Virtue his lean, powerhouse muscles and broad back, he gets to his feet despite her sitting on him, as Cynthia is as light as a feather. She throws her arms around his neck for balance.

               "You screamed louder than when we pierced your ears," she says, hanging off his shoulders, right by his ear.

               "I bore the pain of your hot needle without any complaint," Owain says. "But thinking of it now, if I did scream then –– and just now –– then it was most certainly because I was expressing my delight at seeing you."

               Cynthia laughs, pinches his cheek and unhands him so she can march on ahead.

               "Suit yourself, but your situational analysis needs work," she says. 

               They reach the treeline, where the forest gives way to a steep incline, and Owain is hot on her heels. Cynthia effortlessly dances away from his attempt to tweak her bottom, laughing, and then he catches her in his arms and kisses her cheek and says between kisses: "There is – nothing – wrong – with – my – situational – anaylsis – and it is – in fact – the GREATEST – OF ALL ––"

               She puts a hand over his mouth suddenly, and her eyes widen, so he looks where she is looking.

               Bandits. A whole caravan of them.

               Owain knows they are bandits because they _look_ like bandits. That doesn't sound particularly poetic, however, so he rethinks it: he knows they are bandits because they look like the sourge of the earth, black-hearted men with hard, weathered skin and armed with machetes.

               One of whom is already looking at them.

               "We have a problem, Beano," Owain murmurs against his heroic girlfriend's cheek. 

               "Oh shoot," Cynthia says.

               "How far from camp are we, do you think?" he asks.

               "Not far enough," Cynthia says. "Do we take care of them, or tell Sir Frederick and Ada?"

               Owain pauses. 

               "Are you doubting our ability to double-handedly dispatch these ruffians from this earth, personally saving the Exalt's wife and his most trusted knight?"

               "No," Cynthia says, "but we are pretty outnumbered."

               "Oi!" shouts a bandit. "There's kids!"

               Every head in the bandit camp turns to them, and Owain feels an immediate prickle of insult. He looks down at the offending bandit and returns, heartily: "I am no child, brigand! I am all man, aged twenty–"

               "Dressed real pretty to be all the way out here," the bandit interrupts, sneering. 

               "Good eye, man," Owain replies, because it is true. Though the trip has been long and hard on his swordsman's finery, he is still clad in brilliant yellow and gold and black as pure as night. Garb befitting the nobility of Ylisse, certainly.

               "I meant the girl!" the bandit snaps.

               Owain glances at Cynthia, whose lip has curled, but she's already pulling away from him and grasping for his hand.

               "Eww, let's just get Fred!" she says.

               ( 'Fred.' Owain could snicker if it wasn't so serious.)

               "I will not flee," Owain protests, but he's running already, boots flying over the ground. Cynthia is lither than him, faster –– she springs back through the trees and over roots and shrubberies as if she had wings, while Owain charges somewhat bull-like behind. He doesn't need to look back over his shoulder to hear the cries of the bandits following in hot pursuit.

               It is the longest run of Owain's life. When he and Cynthia burst back into camp, Sir Frederick already has his hand on his sword.

               "How many?" he demands.

               Owain is momentarily pleased that Sir Frederick didn't assume he was hollering for no good reason, and he stumbles over his tongue to respond before they are caught-up-with.

               "A couple dozen!" Cynthia says, right as the first few break sight of camp. Immediately, those first few bandits hit the ground, blasted back by a gale of wind. 

               Owain turns to see Auntie on her feet, tome in-hand and expression grim.

               "Rout them," Auntie orders. "They don't look too smart."

               Between her and Sir Frederick, Owain is quite certain the bandits have made a glorious mistake.

               For his own self, slipping into the mind of a warrior is effortless. He has trained many years for this, and in so many ways Owain is much like his father — his stance is broad, and his grip two-handed. Two hands is overkill, really, but in Owain's mind, there's nothing wrong with overkill.

               A swordfight is quick, merciless. There is no showy parry in a real swordfight, not like the ones he'd watched on stages growing up. The players don't aim their swords at the other's weapon, they go right for flesh, right for the kill.

               Next to Sir Frederick, who dispatches his enemies with swift, singular blows before moving on to the next, Owain is positively showy. Owain likes to play a little, and he knows he is the one to watch for it. His Auntie may be impressive on the battlefield, directing enemies here and there, drawing them in only to put them in Sir Frederick's path, but he is sheer _brilliance_ , all clean footwork and daring thrust! He is the one with the dancing blade, the splendid silver edge –– Owain of Heroic Blood, the Legendary Descendant of Hero-Kings! He is the Chosen Warrior of Hope, the one who––

               "Over here!" Auntie shouts.

               Owain wastes no time — he runs at that man, so fast that the man even steps away from Auntie to defend himself, but no raised arm or sword could stop Owain from kicking that man square in the chest and knocking him to the ground. _Feel the mighty boot!_

               "All who aim to harm my Lady Aunt will get a flying strike to his heart!" Owain declares, as the man heaves in the grass, winded. "One strike is all you had in you, hmm?! DO NOT GO GENTLY—"

               "OWAIN!" Cynthia hollers, from where she is expertly fending off three bandits with only a lance. One, two, parry, _sashay_! She catches one across the face and he reels into the grass, and then she narrowly diverts a swung machete with her lance blade.

               "In need of some assistance?!" Owain responds, at the top of his voice.

               "Just go help her," Auntie orders, raising a hand. Dark magic glows in her palm, swelling dangerously, and she thrusts it at a bandit who is trying to defend himself from Sir Frederick, who doesn't seem to intend to let any of them walk away.

               "Fall back!" cries a bandit, and a couple of the remaining bandits immediately flee. One, however, has no clear path of escape –– he is caught between Cynthia and Sir Frederick, and when he tries to follow his comrades, he ends up bouncing right off of Sir Frederick's breastplate with a comical _thud_.

               Owain watches the bandit look up at Sir Frederick, who towers over the man with a dark countenance and a sharp gesture with his sword to the man's throat. In that very moment, Owain is certain the bandit has peed himself. 

               (He hopes one day he can strike that kind of fear into his enemies, but if he's being realistic, he needs to put a lot more work into his Dark persona first.)

               "Run," Sir Frederick commands. 

               So the bandit does, scrambling through the grass and away, after his fleeing companions.

               "Did that guy pee himself?" Cynthia asks from where she is standing with her foot between a wounded man's shoulder blades.

               "I had the same thought!" Owain replies, gleefully.

               Sir Frederick doesn't seem pleased, but Owain figures he has had decades to grow used to his own pants-wetting nature. (That is, a nature that causes others to wet their pants, not a matter of— _eww,_ Owain doesn't want to think of that.) Even so, Sir Frederick marches to Auntie and demands: "Are you hurt?"

               "Easy, Frederick," Auntie says. "Owain got him before he could even properly try."

               Owain politely pretends to not see the looks that Sir Frederick and Auntie exchange, and he instead moves to Cynthia and takes his best girl by the arm, stepping right over the fallen bandit, who moans under them.

               "Doesn't that hurt?" he asks, referring to the blood on Cynthia's mouth, where a bandit had, at some point or another, caught it in some way. Cynthia laughs.

               "Not really, I just accidentally bit my tongue trying to do this thing I thought would look cool, but the guy whacked me," she says. She hooks a finger in her mouth and drops her jaw to reveal the bit of blood rolling around in her spit. "No big deal though."

               "How troublesome! Felled by her own pearly whites!" Owain replies, empathetic as all can be. "Let's practice it for next time."

               Sir Frederick heaves a sigh, stepping over another bandit as he crosses camp to his horse.

               "Another time, children," he says. "For now, we have to get back on the road."

 

* * *

 

               Owain is daydreaming in the saddle when he realizes that Cynthia's bottom smiles at him almost as much as her face does, the little curve of her cheek and her shorts riding high. She tugs them down once an hour, thoughtlessly, completely out of habit, whether he's looking or not. The little snap of the fabric against her skin makes him sit a little straighter every time he hears it. 

               "Owain," Frederick barks, snapping him from his reverie. When Owain is too slow to look over, Frederick turns to follow his gaze, and then sighs: "Cynthia! Your dress is much too short."

               "It's regulation, I checked," Cynthia replies, cheerily, posting up in the saddle again. Owain loves that cheer. "Thanks for looking out for me, though!"

               She's so cheeky. _Cynthia is cheeky!_ What a good turn of phrase that could be, Owain muses.

               Frederick grumbles, and Auntie chimes in coolly: "Frederick, we covered quite a bit of ground today, and it's getting to be high afternoon; I think we could stand to rest a bit."

               Cynthia perks up immediately.

               "Can we pleaaaase bathe? I am practically drowning in my own sweat, and I think something is growing in my left armpit," Cynthia says. 

               Auntie sits up a little straighter in the saddle, looking around. The river is just on the other side the trees, Owain knows, and he would sorely love to go down there, too. In the oppressive summer heat, nothing sounds better than a clear, cold river. He'd even take some fish nibbling on him, if it came to it, just to dunk his head under for a second.

               "Go now, then," Auntie says. "You two first, then either Frederick or I."

               "One moment," Sir Fredrick says, as they all dismount. "Do you mean to let them bathe together?"

               Auntie looks up at him with a rare _playful_ smile.

               "They already share a tent, so I think your worries are a little misplaced," she says. And then, pleasantly: "Remember the lecture you gave me all those years ago? When you caught me slipping out of Chrom's bath?"

               Sir Frederick smiles, too, which Owain thinks is absolutely bizarre to see. In fact, it scares him a little. Sir Frederick challenges her: "What was it you called me? The Virginity Vanguard?"

               "Sounds about right," she says. "Those were good days."

               "It was only a few short years ago," Sir Frederick says, a little pointedly.

               Auntie's expression tightens, but she laughs: "Speaking of the Virginity Vanguard… do you remember that time when Lon'qu finally touched…"

               With an enterprising spirit, Owain takes Cynthia by the hand and gestures with his eyes that they should, at this very moment, while their chaperones are distracted with their reveries, slink off to bathe. As much as Owain loves to hear tales of the old days, he doesn't want to hear about their sex lives, especially not those of his _parents_ –– they are all, after all, _ancient_ in his eyes, as well as heroes whose reputations must be preserved. Thus, time to vanish.

               So they do. He's not going to wait for Sir Frederick to tell them no, and he has the slightest inkling that Auntie planned it anyway.

               Hand-in-hand, they skip through the trees and down to the river, and Owain glances sidelong at his most effusive partner in crime just to watch the mottled shadows of the leaves pass over her beauteous self. Her cheeks are sunburnt in a way that some would call raccoon-like, but Owain is only ever charmed by it. It makes her look rosier. She makes an intentionally weird face when she catches him watching her, but that also charms him. Everything she does charms him.

               He thinks of another poem, one by another of his personal heroes:

 

> _She walks in beauty, like the night_
> 
> _Of cloudless climes and starry skies;_
> 
> _And all that's best of dark and bright_
> 
> _Meet in her aspect and her eyes:_
> 
> _Thus mellow'd to that tender light_
> 
> _Which heaven to gaudy day denies._

 

               Yes! Perfect for Cynthia, he thinks.

               At the river, Cynthia starts immediately shucking off her gear and unbuttoning her dress and shrugging herself out of it all. Owain turns his back to undress, which seems rather funny to him given how many times they've seen each other in their most natural state, but it's only polite.

               "Hey," Cynthia says.

               "Hay is for horses, my sweet," he replies, just to be silly.

               "Ha-ha," she replies. "I had a question for you."

               He peeks at her over his shoulder. She's bent at the waist to drop her shorts and is not at all looking at him, which he thinks is quite a shame, given how good he looks in the process of revealing his chiseled, sculpted body. 

               "Yes, love of my life, the very stars in my sky?" Owain asks.

               "Are we gonna have kids someday?" Cynthia asks. Now she's really pink, and not just because of the sunburn. "I mean, I'm game when you are, I just wanted to know. We've never talked about kids."

               "We will have a daughter," Owain decides. "With your beauty and good nature and sweetness, and my theatrics and storytelling."

               "I like that. What will we name her?"

               "Starchild," Owain says. 

               "What!" Cynthia laughs, plopping down in the water. "You can't name a kid that! It has to be cute, so she doesn't get made fun of."

               "Well, the women in your family have names with -ia," Owain says, "So she must be an -ia."

               "Amelia," Cynthia suggests. "Claudia. Maria. Cecelia. Anastasia. Camellia. Hortensia."

               "Hortensia?" Owain repeats. "You're mad, woman, and though your creativity knows no bounds, this is our _daughter_ , theoretical as she may be!"

               "Ophelia," she says.

               "Ophelia! I like that one." He looks at her, and teases: "Say, my sweet lady... are you pregnant?"

               "No!" Cynthia laughs, pleasantly. She dunks her head under the water momentarily and then surfaces again. "I just like thinking about us, and our future."

               "I feel the same way," he says. "Someday… _someday_ , I hope you do me the sincere honour of bearing my children."

               Cynthia gives him a wry look. Owain just runs his fingers through her soaked hair, brushing her long bangs from her face, and she grins.

               "Someday," she agrees.

               They fall into a comfortable silence, and Owain thinks gleefully of the prospect of a bloodline of his own. Once upon a time, he and Cynthia had squabbled over stories of the future where she'd died and he'd become Owain Dark and dedicated himself to avenging her, but now they only have good stories. 

               It's a rule between them: their love will be a thing of epics, not tragedies.

               Babies are a little far off, especially with adventuring to be had and their own parents still bringing little brothers and sisters into the world, but _someday_.

               Once their hair is suitably washed, Cynthia starts rubbing her thumbs into his shoulders, massaging out kinks from long hours in the saddle. It's sore but in a good way, and Owain relaxes under her touch.

               "You know what else I'm excited for?" Cynthia says.

               "Oh?"

               "Lucina's face when we bring her mother home," Cynthia says. "I think she'll go crazy."

               Owain laughs.

               "It would be the rarest of sights, but I think she would die of joy," he says.

 

* * *

 

               Some days later, as they near their end destination, the thunderclouds start rolling in.

               In truth, Owain should have seen it coming, given how the days have been so oppressively hot. In Plegia it had been the kind of heat that had sucked the moisture from his skin, and now, as they descend lower in the valleys, it has grown more and more humid. He swears he could breathe in deeply and fill his lungs.

               But whether he should have seen it coming or not, it seems to hearken to something. It's not difficult to see Auntie getting more focused, more withdrawn, or to see Sir Frederick grow impatient. The dark clouds coming in overhead mirror their countenances perfectly. Owain can only hope a good storm banishes their misery along with the humidity.

               When they stop for the evening, Sir Frederick and Owain set up the tents while Cynthia cooks dinner, and Auntie wanders off on patrol. Owain and Sir Frederick make quick work of it, setting up one tent for sleeping and the other as a make-shift lean-to for the horses, who wouldn't be pleased to be caught in the downpour. It's quiet work, though, and while Owain tries to puncutate the silence by working on a poem out loud, Sir Frederick says nothing.

               " _Owain!_ " Cynthia yells. Owain's ears prick to her voice immediately, and he turns so quickly he nearly spins.

               "Yes!" he calls back. "What is it, most beauteous wing'd knight?!"

               "Dinner is ready!" she calls back, when she isn't giggling. Cynthia's laughter is always physical — her arms wrapped around herself, a doubling at the waist, an exaggerated merry stomp. She calls: "And you already used beauteous today! What else?"

               "Minx!" Owain shouts back at her. "I was at a loss for better words at the mere sight of you!"

               "Then beauteous will do!" she calls, and she giggles again.

               "It is what you are, sweet Cynthia, but it will _never_ do! There are countless other words I could use to describe your magnanimity, your elegance, the perfection of your very self, from nape of neck to most slender ankle—"

               "What in Naga's name do you think you are doing?" Sir Frederick interjects, his voice a loud, low boom. Owain nearly jumps.

               "Sir Frederick!" he says, though he shouldn't be startled — Sir Frederick has been in his earshot this whole time. "I was just being called to dinner, which I am _sure_ , given your most excellent fire, will be the best dinner of my life!"

               "It will be," Sir Frederick says, "right before you are killed by Risen or any damned bandit who hears your nonsense bouncing off the mountains and through the valleys!"

               A fair point. Owain breathes deeply, chest swelling, and he lowers his voice to reply: "Yes, Sir Frederick! I will labour to contain my love for dear Cynthia, so that we are not endangered!"

               Cynthia is snickering. Sir Frederick just looks at them with such weariness, such exasperation. Owain is resigned to live with the burden that he is, at times, a little much for the average man or woman to digest, so to speak, but he takes pride in it, too. He is, after all, a Hero.

               "Let's just eat dinner," Sir Frederick says, scolding but utterly resigned to his fondness for Heroes. "And Gods help me if any more reckless people are wed into the royal family after Cynthia, I don't think I'd survive another."

               Owain almost gleefully points out that Sir Frederick's own son is next up, but he doesn't want the family knight to develop an aneurysm. Instead, Owain hastily makes his way over to where dinner is being dished up. He sits at the fire and Cynthia plops down next to him, and she wiggles in so close that she catches him in his side with her elbow, but he doesn't dare make a noise. They have fifteen minutes until Sir Frederick's patience has recovered, and he doesn't fancy getting a tongue lashing or spending the last hour or so before the rain running laps if he pushes his luck too much.

               O, what punishments he would take for a moment with Cynthia, though.

               "Frederick," Cynthia says. When Sir Frederick doesn't respond, she repeats: " _Sir_ Frederick?"

               "Yes, child?"

               "What's my title going to be when I'm married to Owain?" she asks.

               "Duchess," he says. "But your title will be one of courtesy, rather than that of a peer."

               "Huh," Cynthia says. "Do I get my own crown as a duchess? Like, a lesser crown but a crown nonetheless?"

               "You may wear a tiara, and it may be finely made, but you will not wear a crown," Sir Frederick replies.

               "Cool," Cynthia says.

               "It is not 'cool', it is just what would befit your––" He pauses very suddenly, and then looks alarmed. "I didn't get Lord Chrom's crown back from Nowi."

               "What?" Owain and Cynthia both say, at the same time.

               "Nothing," Sir Frederick says, immediately, but he gets up and strides away like there's something very serious he must do. He's odd, Owain thinks, but that's just how great heroes are sometimes.

               "He's so weird," Cynthia says.

               "I marvel that Gerome isn't as strange as he is," Owain says. 

               There's another beat of silence between them, even with Sir Frederick gone, and Owain glances sidelong at Cynthia. She is stuffing her face with dinner, but she is beautiful nonetheless, even with a bit of grease on her chin. Even the scarfing noise is beautiful to his ears! So after a beat, he says, "Say, my dearest beloved Cynthia. We should fashion you a tiara of your own, right now, before the storm. One of snapdragons and lobelia!"

               "What?" Cynthia laughs. "Do those even grow around here?"

               "Well, I did say them because they sounded dramatic, but I suppose that's true," he says. "Never you mind! Do you want a crown of flowers?"

               Cynthia's smile blossoms like the very flowers that will soon crown her head.

               "Sure!" Cynthia says.

               "Then wait right here," Owain says, shoving the last of his dinner in his mouth. He imagines a brisk walk could burn off the energy that will no doubt plague him through the storm, too, so up he gets to go find flowers.

               The tension from the storm over head is undoubtedly because the adventure, he thinks, is coming to its logical end. They will find the house soon, and Owain isn't particularly sure of what they'll find. After all, Auntie hasn't been particularly forthcoming on that note, and it does bother him, in a strange, rather unheroic way, to think of going back home to where he may be court martialed.

               In a way, Auntie's word is all that protects him there. If Sir Frederick is truly being dismissed –– which he is not supposed to know –– and if the Exalt is truly struggling to keep the confidence of his own court –– which he has known for far longer than he'd like to admit –– then his future may be more unclear than he'd like. Despite all their talk, it really is uncertain.

               Owain goes to find Cynthia's flowers with an oddly heavy heart. 

               And there's Auntie, standing on the crest of the hill with her hands deep in her trouser pockets, her tunic caught on the wind and fanning up at her waist. Owain watches her a moment, and he thinks that though his auntie may not be beautiful like his Cynthia, there is a regalness about her posture that draws his eye to her anyway. He hopes he can carry that sort of air someday.

               She turns to look at him, her eyes narrowed and her mouth in a hard line, but as soon as she sees who he is, she softens considerably.

               "What a frightning look that was," Owain says.

               "Sorry," Auntie says. "I thought you were Frederick."

               Owain strides up the hill to stand next to her.

               "Are you cross with him?" Owain asks. He almost says "again" but that'd be rude.

               "We have our disagreements," Auntie says. "He's not very enthused about this whole affair, though he's been very patient with me. Not quite as much as you, though."

               She reaches to cup his cheek for a moment, dotingly. Owain nods. Does she miss her children sorely, he wonders?

               "He has much more patience than I do to begin with," he admits.

               "Frederick is also _very_ susceptible to charm, right up until you're asking him to lie or abandon his principles," Auntie says. "That's why he's been so cross with me — I overdid it by making him come with us, but he never would have walked away."

               Owain almost winces. He doesn't think her cruel — no woman who could raise his admirable cousins or shepherd them all in battle could be rightfully called _cruel_ — but she is, perhaps, being callous.

               "We have had a good adventure, and soon it will be at an end," Owain says, trying to be diplomatic. And then he admits, not so reluctantly: "But I think Sir Frederick's anxieties are justified. Lady Cherche must have reached the capital by now, and I'm sure Uncle Chrom is deeply worried."

               Auntie gives him a scuntinizing look.

               "Do _you_ think I should have just gone back to Ylisstol?" she says. "Do you wish you'd just reported me found?"

               "Perhaps so, my dear Lady Aunt, even though I have enjoyed this adventure. Truthfully, I…" Owain smiles, and can't resist giving a little flourish of his hand. "I, the Judicious Swordsman Owain, would love to see his famly reunited!"

               Auntie sighs good-naturedly.

               "I suppose I can't argue with a point like that," she says. "You're a good man, Owain."

               Even if she doesn't seem all that convinced, Owain feels his chest grow a little tight with pride anyway.

               "I know this might sound weird, given he's your uncle and all," Auntie says, "but I miss him so much I feel it in my bones."

               Owain laughs.

               "Aww, Auntie, it's not weird," he says. "Why, if the world plucked Cynthia from my arms, I'd miss her every second of every day! My heart would sing of nothing but her until the day we reunited."

               Auntie laughs, too, but it's a little forlorn, a little lovelorn.

               "Oh, Owain," she says, fondly. "I hope you're never parted. But at the very least, if it _ever_ happened, I think you'd appreciate it somehow."

               "How so?" he asks.

               "Because," she says. "Heartache makes you see things a little differently, makes you realize just how much you might have thrown away. You're very glass-half-full, Owain."

               He's oddly flattered by this, even if it amounts to his being the kind of person who tells stories about losing loved ones.

               "It's hard to imagine you didn't appreciate Uncle to the fullest before this, Auntie," Owain says, and it's true –– his boyhood memories of them were almost always in a family setting, seeing them brush fingertips and play footsie under the table and bicker playfully, even with Lucina on one knee.

               "It isn't that, I just feel the gravity of my choices a lot more now," Auntie says. She pauses, smile fading, and she says: "I didn't think I'd be here to deal with any consequences, much less these ones."

               Ah, the heroic sacrifice. Owain has come up with numerous scenarios for his own (eventual) heroic death, and some of them have been structured around sacrifice –– they are a staple scenario, after all. But he supposes she has a point –– he'd never considered what would come after, if the sacrifice itself was thwarted.

               He has many friends who would throttle him for even trying to do such a thing.

               "I sacrificed so much!" Auntie says. "But I get the impression I made a grand sacrifice on behalf of my loved ones, too, and I shouldn't have."

               Owain looks up at the sky. The stars have vanished behind a thick curtain of black clouds, so that eveningfall is almost as dark as night already. He can't imagine growing up in this lush but isolated world, far from the people or books that had always brought adventure into his life when he was too small to seek it out on his own. Was her childhood without friends? Would he have survived a similar fate?

               "A noble feat," Owain says, finally.

               "Hmm?" Auntie hums. "Noble?"

               "To sacrifice that which you love for another," Owain says. "I think what you did was most noble."

               Auntie shakes her head.

               "I don't think any of it is noble, Owain," she says. "I think it was an act of love, possibly one with the most conviction a person can have. But there's nothing noble about it, not when it was a choice made at Chrom's expense."

               Owain pauses.

               "Has Sir Frederick told you how Uncle Chrom has been, since you left us?" he asks.

               "Just enough to confirm what I know in my heart," she says.

               Owain nods. He reaches for her shoulder and squeezes it. 

               "Uncle will be fine, Auntie," he says. "He'll be delighted."

               Auntie nods, but she doesn't press for more. Instead, on that crest of the hill, she points into the distance, and leans in close to make sure his sight is following her hand.

               "Well, then, see the crux there, between those two mountains?" she says. "Twelve, maybe thirteen hours' ride that way. There's home."

               His vision of reaching their goal briefly flickers. 

               "Home?" he asks.

               She pauses.

               "What once was my home," she corrects herself, but he notes the warmth is gone from her voice. Owain settles a hand on her shoulder and smiles bracingly.

               "I didn't mean to make you feel sore, Auntie," he says. "It was home to you once, that's fair enough."

               "It's okay," she replies. "How about that view, though? It's even more beautiful by day."

               Owain looks to the mountains, dark and shadowy, and his poetic heart swells three times over. The clouds roil ahead, stretching on eternally overhead, indomitably black. The valley below them is a great grassy bowl, and there's apple trees and meadows of flowers as far as the eye can see, all under the shroud.

               "Poetry," Owain replies. "And Auntie?"

               "Yes?"

               "You need to breathe," he says. "You don't look well."

               Auntie just nods.

               And that's when the first fat raindrops start to fall.

 

* * *

 

               There's a terrific thunderstorm that night; Owain says terrific only because Sir Frederick lets them abandon all pretense of responsibility and huddle in the tent doorway to watch the lightning streak across the sky instead of sleeping. (Not that they could accomplish much of that with the noise, or when they're at risk of being rained out.) It's real cozy with the four of them are packed in the one tent, anyway. They'll sleep in the saddle tomorrow, if not tonight — it's not often any of them sees a storm like this, so it's worth staying up for.

               Cynthia is warm on his lap. They watch the lightning fork over and over again, beautiful and bright. Cynthia is idly tracing little patterns on his knee, and he feels every breath she takes through his very skin.

               If Sir Frederick and Auntie Ada weren't crammed in close, Owain would surely be doing some very impulsive things, but as things are, he'll settle for a little family-appropriate cuddling.

               "Auntie Ada," Cynthia says, "if you used magic, could you control the lightning?"

               Auntie laughs warmly, though she scarcely looks up from her writing — Owain peers over and sees she is writing on paper that has already been thoroughly filled, so much so that the new text is perpendicular to the old. He should have guessed she would exhaust what little paper he brought with him.

               "Maybe," she says, after a moment of wondering. "It's far away, but I could possibly draw it closer."

               "I pray you extinguish the thought before you give it any more consideration," Sir Frederick remarks, dully. He has to keep his head at an angle to prevent brushing the canvas roof with his head — it makes him look permanently quizzical.

               "What fun are you?" Cynthia asks. She's getting bold.

               "Really, Frederick. Don't be paranoid," Auntie adds.

               "I don't dare suggest anything _fun_ , lest you hadn't considered it before and then decide to give it a good try," Sir Frederick replies.

               Auntie chuckles. She sets aside her pen and paper, and Sir Frederick dims the lamp to conserve oil. The tent grows dark, the only light coming from the periodic flash of lightning. For a moment they all sit watching, the rumble overhead deep and lovely.

               "Want to go try?" Auntie asks Cynthia. 

               Cynthia pauses, and then grins.

               "Yeah," she says, springing from his lap.

               Owain gets to his feet, too. He lets Cynthia and his Auntie's enthusiasm bubble in him, lift his spirits — how often does a man get to see lightning _wrangled?_ And not just any lightning, either –– any mage can call rudimentary lightning. This is _wild_ lightning.

               Sir Frederick sighs heavily, and he has to shift over when Auntie crawls past him to her pack. Despite his protests, he reaches for her bag first and pulls out her cloak, draping it around her shoulders.

               "Be careful," he says. "Very careful. Even you won't win a battle with lightning."

               "You know," Auntie says, "I _have_ won battles on earth and battles at sea, and a battle at sky––"

               "You _have_ lost before," Sir Frederick interjects, there. Auntie turns to look at him, and Owain and Cynthia do too, their necks stiff as wood and the tension almost dangerous. Owain can't see Auntie's face, but...

               "I've never lost a battle in my life," she says.

               "No," Sir Frederick says. "It was a––"

               "A pyrrhic victory is still a victory," Auntie cuts him off, pointedly. Sir Frederick just frowns at her, and then he looks away. "And I'm still here, Frederick. Things will be fine."

               Sir Frederick doesn't respond. He has too much pride, Owain thinks. Auntie _is_ still here, like she said. But Sir Frederick doesn't make any effort to stop them, either –– the three of them venture out of the tent, the grass slippery under their bare toes and the raindrops bouncing on their scalps.

               "I'm so excited!" Cynthia says, and already her hair is starting to plaster to her head. She leaps into the air like she might just fly to the lightning herself. 

               "If you manage this, Auntie," Owain says, "you must teach me after!"

               Auntie smiles at him, and though it is quite dark, he knows there's a twinkle of challenge in her eye. She raises her arms, the front of her cloak falling back, and she turns her open palms to the sky.

               "I'll make promises about teaching you if I actually pull this off," she says.

               "Do it, then!" Cynthia goads her.

               "Alright, move back a couple steps," Auntie says. "Ready?"

               "Ready!" Owain and Cynthia say in return.

               So she makes a flick of her wrist, and at the same time, lightning streaks across the sky. It could be closer, by Owain's eyes, but he cannot be sure. 

               Sir Frederick steps up behind them, having followed them up the slippery hill to where they can see the valley below, the bowl of the mountains spread all around them. Another streak of lighting blazes flickers overhead, unfettered by any attempt to wrangle it, and it hits close enough that Owain imagines he can see exactly where it strikes across the valley.

               "Just be careful," Sir Frederick chides, but he seems a little excited too.

               After a moment, all four of them thoroughly (if not pleasantly) soaked, she tries again, and this time Owain feels it. He feels it between his toes, on the tip of his nose – there's a static charge, something electric that tells him they are, indeed, playing with lightning. He looks at Cynthia, and she is flexing her fingers, quivering with an all-body shiver that is not at all from the rain.

               It feels close.

               They still haven't _seen_ her do it, though.

               "Once more," Cynthia says.

               Owain feels it in the roots of his hair, wet or not. He feels it in his eyelashes. There's something––

               And before Owain or Cynthia can move, Auntie sharply turns her wrists and draws her hands in, and Owain sees lightning arc across the sky impossibly –– a great fork of light coming overhead, lingering as if frozen, and then she snaps it to the side. It moves as if flung, streaking back and forth, and hits a tree a hundred or so feet away, which glows orange for a mere second before exploding.

_Exploding! In flames!_

                Cynthia shrieks joyously.

               "Did you see how close that got?!" she wails.

               "Incredible!" Owain says. "Wild lightning!"

               Auntie pivots on the spot to wave them off, as if it were no big deal, and for a moment the three of them revel in it with light bursting in their eyes.

               "Do it again!" Cynthia says.

               "That was glorious," Owain says. And then when he meets his auntie's eyes, he says, startled: "Auntie, are you _crying_?"

               Auntie laughs, though tightly, and she tips her head back to the rain.

               "It's just the rain," she says. "What was that poem?"

               Owain knows what he sees, but he just smiles with courage and fortitude and throws his arms open to the air. She _is_ crying, evidently, but Owain decides he will see her tears for what they must be — the tears of a legendary warrior, blessed by the dragon-god to live again. So he bellows:

 

> _"Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,_
> 
> _Lightning my pilot sits;_
> 
> _In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,_
> 
> _It struggles and howls at fits!"_

 

               Auntie is laughing.

               "Struggle sounds about right," she says. And then, with her shoulders back and her head held high, she shouts, too: "I'm the luckiest woman alive!"

               Cynthia cups her hands to her mouth and shrieks, into the rain: "I don't have anything poetic to say!!"

               Owain laughs, and so does Cynthia.

               "You try," Cynthia urges Sir Frederick, who looks profoundly uncomfortable.

               There's a pause, and then Sir Frederick bellows, quite suddenly: "I shall always be a knight at heart!"

               Which strikes Owain as a rather funny thing to shout — as if Sir Frederick has ever been anything but — but he watches Auntie put a hand to Sir Frederick's arm in a particularly bracing way. Sir Frederick looks at her, and then he closes his hand around her hand and kisses the back of it, and Owain is so tickled by the sight of Sir Frederick acting the part of a knight that he nearly screams.

               "Enough of this," Sir Frederick says as he pulls away, and he heads back down the hill. Auntie scoffs at his back, though smiling.

               Owain just turns to his Auntie and his dear Cynthia and he says: "Let this rain come down and wash away all our sorrows!"

               Auntie snorts and starts heading back down the hill, but Cynthia gives him a loud laugh as she links her arm with his and pulls him to follow the others.

               "Wash away our sorrows? That was so cheesy," she says.

               Owain shucks off his tunic at the doorway because it is miserably wet, and Cynthia pokes him right in the Brand, so he ups the ante by poking her in the butt in turn. She giggles. When they bed down for the night, all four of them crammed in together, Owain cuddles Cynthia once more to his chest, and Auntie's elbow in his back and Sir Frederick snoring over them all.

               All things considered, Owain decides he has high hopes for the morning.

 

* * *

 

               Though the sun shines once more, the grass is slippery, the long shadows of the trees preserving the morning dew until long after they've wrung out the tents, packed up and gotten back on the trail. The hours seem to crawl by, but no matter how agonizingly slow time passes, Owain feels excited.

               Nearing sundown, Auntie says: "It's just over this next hill."

               Owain feels a chill run down his spine.

               "Want me to scout ahead?" Cynthia asks, excited.

               "No," Auntie says. "I want to see it myself first."

               They're almost there. It's real now.

               She suddenly seems very nervous. Owain isn't sure he's ever seen that. 

               "Let's go see it, then," Owain says.

               Auntie hesitates, and then she slides from the saddle.

               "Ada," Sir Frederick says, concerned. She's got that pallid look on her face, the kind before she passes out, and Owain dismounts to follow her. He reaches for her arm but she's already out of his reach, moving in long, swift strides towards the rise of the last hill.

               "I don't know if I'm ready," she says, but she goes forward just the same.

               "We've come all this way," Owain says after her. "Aren't you excited?"

               Auntie doesn't reply.

               She just runs over the rise.


	10. Interlude: News for the Exalt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cherche flies home to deliver the good news and see her dear son only to get other news in return.

.

 

 

 

              All hard rides come with a sense of unpredictability. One can never tell how news will be received, but it must be delivered nonetheless.

              Cherche lands hard, Minerva's talons digging for purchase on the stables' courtyard. She slides from the saddle almost as if it were a part of the same momentum, flinging herself to her feet from Minerva's spine. Her heart is hammering –– she's had days of hard flying to think about this moment –– but true to form, she has her head squarely on her shoulders.

              A stableboy approaches by rote but stops short when he realizes he is expected to take a wyvern. 

              "News from Sir Frederick!" she announces, breathlessly, and unbuckling her helmet as she speaks. "Inform Exalt Chrom immediately; I need an audience with him post-haste."

              The stableboy seems too alarmed to respond right away, his wide eyes fixed on Minerva, whose long nose is already raised to the sky, searching for the scent of dinner. Cherche drops Minerva's reins and leaves her where she is, untethered. She won't go far — in fact, her sweet Wyvern follows at her heels like a kitten.

              " _Well?_ " Cherche says, standing tall. She can't help but smile for emphasis.

              "One moment, Madam Cherche," the stableboy replies, swiftly, and he takes off at a run.

              Good service is difficult to find, even for an Exalt's residence and the center of the halidom. Cherche knows this well, having come from a long line of servants always in rare form. She — and Sir Frederick — are a class of their own. 

              Today they will have certainly earned their keep.

              Cherche unlaces her riding leathers with a practiced efficiency, plenty eager to be free of them after the most hurried ride of her life, but also eager to deliver the message, and then see her son. 

              To her great fortune, Gerome steps into the courtyard a moment later, and she's scarcely said hello before he's dutifully stepped up to her to carry her gear for her. She is somewhat surprised to see him in a plain shirt, waistcoat and trousers; like his father, he so seldom goes entirely unarmored.

              "Cherche," he says. "I hadn't expected you back so soon, with the note you left."

              "Important news carried me, but I always fly faster when my dear son is home," she replies, and she pulls him into an embrace and kisses both his cheeks, one after the other. Gerome is stiff in her arms but he doesn't protest, not even when she cups his cheeks between her palms to inspect him. "You've been eating well? Sleeping?"

              "Cherche," Gerome says, the slightest bit exasperated, and Cherche laughs. 

              She'd felt a potential for motherhood in her bones the moment the Shepherds had met Lucina and heard her tale of time travel and lost children. That was long before Cherche and Frederick had fallen in love, when the two of them had nearly set aside their courtship for duty. If they hadn't found Gerome, they very likely would have gone to their separate houses and never amounted to anything together. But when they'd found Gerome, Cherche had known that he was Frederick's son in an instant, the very _second_ that she had seen him: all the telltale signs were there, Frederick's colouring, his dark hair and broad jaw, the way he stubbornly chose duty above all else.

              Gerome was without a doubt their child.

              In a way, it had settled them. Sir Frederick and Lady Cherche, hand-in-hand. Gerome, reluctant as he may be to accept it, is the perfect union of his parents.

              "You'll tell me about your trip soon though, won't you please?" Cherche asks. "I have to meet with the Exalt immediately, and after we shall have dinner together."

              Gerome frowns, and to her great surprise, he drops his eyes.

              "Gerome," she says, concerned. "What's wrong?"

              "I'm sorry to inform you, Cherche," he says, "but much has happened while you have been gone."

              Cherche purses her lips. She passes her thumb over his cheek and then drops her hand entirely when he pulls away.

              "Tell me quickly," she says. "The Exalt is waiting for me."

              Gerome nods, and he seems to steel himself.

              "Lucina and Morgan departed a few days ago, with the intent of finding their mother. Presumably, the same woman that you and Sir Frederick set out to find," he says. His dark brows furrow. "The Exalt was… very angry."

              Cherche looks at her son with some caution, and she asks, carefully: "And _who_ told them that their mother had returned?"

              Gerome's expression darkens at that, and Cherche thinks that she did _not_ just fly at breakneck speeds across the halidom only to be told that her son has cast away every bit of discretion she and Frederick put in place. But Gerome doesn't say anything –– he just dutifully lifts his chin. She smiles, just slightly, which would make anyone _but_ her son tremble in their boots.

              "After I've spoken to the Exalt, you and I are going to have strong words about this, son," Cherche says. "I can't imagine why you thought that was permissible."

              "I serve Princess Lucina as my father serves hers," Gerome replies.

              "You have much to learn," Cherche replies, and though she knows from the cant of his shoulders alone that he has more to say, she turns her back on her son. 

              She is a mother, and so she knows disappointment is the way to go rather than anger. Boys like him only shore up their defenses when confronted.

              "It would have violated my service to Princess Lucina to keep such a thing from her. I am sure that you would not have kept comparable truths from Lord Virion, when you were in his service, or now keep them from Exalt Chrom––"

              Cherche looks back at him with a raised brow.

              "Have I not done just that?"

              Gerome pauses.

              "We only reveal what is certain, Gerome, and Ada's return was not certain," Cherche says. "But no matter. I won't hear more of this, so you can make your excuses later, my dear son. Right now I need to speak to the Exalt –– please stable Minerva for me."

              "There is more to tell you," he says.

              "Not now," she replies, and her word is law in her household.

              Gerome says nothing more, but he takes Minerva by the halter to obediently lead her away. He hurries her off. Cherche knows he has more to say, but he can wait. The Exalt is more important right now than petty excuses.

              So Cherche walks to the throne room to see the Exalt. Even if his own children have run off, Lord Chrom would surely appreciate, at the very least, the news that the first pair of missing children are safe, and that his wife will be home in some time.

              As she walks the long hallways and staircases to the throne room, she thinks that it would relieve Frederick immensely to know that balance is being restored, and that his concerns will soon be resolved. He's a sweet man, but he is plagued terribly by his anxieties –– she cannot hope to soothe him completely, as he will not truly rest until he has also returned to the castle with Ada in tow, but for now she can at least hope the _thought_ will quell his worries.

              In many ways, she thinks a forced retirement could be good for him. Otherwise he'd keep on in service to the Exalt until he were crippled or killed, and she would selfishly have more time with him than that. 

              She thinks of the low thrum of his voice in his chest, the way he'd said _I want to make babies with you._ She would enjoy being a different kind of mother, she thinks, or at least she would enjoy being the mother of a boy who isn't afraid to be a son –– she would be very good at it, and Frederick deserves to be that kind of father.

              One conversation with the Exalt, and then a week or two or more of doing whatever is needed of her, and Frederick will retire. Lord Chrom will be at ease, too. The Shepherds will likely be called up to march out and meet Frederick and Ada and the children half-way; that seems _very_ likely. Some will be sent to retrieve Lucina and Morgan, as they will undoubtedly be lost trying to find their mother. 

              Cherche pauses.

_But how did they know where––_

              Gerome returns to her in that instant, breath quickened from running. (He's never been much of a runner, but neither has she.) Cherche finds herself instantly displeased, and she raises her chin.

              "Did you _rush_ to stable her?" Cherche says, with some displeasure creeping into her voice. "Gerome. She has had a hard flight, and she needs dinner promptly to regain her strength. Poor girl!"

              Gerome just steps ahead of her to block the door to the throne room, and she sees the trouble on his face and the hard line of his mouth. 

              "Minerva is fine," he says. "Rest assured I would not be careless for her."

              "Open the door for your mother or else move aside," Cherche says. "Do you intend to keep me from my task?"

              "Mother," Gerome says, quietly, but though his tone begs her to hear him out, she won't be moved by it. Not now. Her husband is not cutting years from his life with the stress of their current predicament to have their son block the door, and duty comes first.

              She gestures for him to move.

              He hesitates, and then he opens it. She strides past him, up the long hall of the throne room. It is busy, as if court is in session, but there is no procession to the throne, nor any speech being given. The crowds part for Cherche as she approaches, all falling silent, all eyes turning to her.

              She pauses, however, when her eyes land on the empty throne, and then on Lissa, who is sat in the Queen consort's chair with a pillow behind her back and her hands folded on her belly. Their eyes meet, and Lissa sits taller abruptly, concern on her face.

              Cherche considers for an instant that it is the very chair Ada will fill.

              Everything is changing.

              "Lissa," Cherche says, carefully. "You are not who I expected to find on the seat of Ylisse."

              Lissa looks quite surprised, too. Her hands flutter to her chest, and she heaves a long sigh of relief.

              "Oh Cherche, you're back," Lissa says, with a long, deep breath in. "Do we have news about Owain? Where's Frederick?"

              Cherche can forgive a mother for blazing past Chrom's whereabouts in favour of her missing child, so she moves dutifully to the foot of the throne and sinks to one knee.

              "We have located your son, Lord Owain, and Cynthia," Cherche says.

              "Phew," Lissa says. "Pardon my informality, but thank the gods, am I right? Where is he?"

              Cherche pauses and watches the look on Lissa's face, earnestly curious, expectations for her son high but woefully unprepared for the rest. For a moment, Lissa raises her eyes to the crowd, to the doors down the hall, as if she might see Owain waiting for his turn to speak or be acknowledged, but there's no child of hers in sight. Relief comes mixed with new disappointment.

              "He's is still on the road with Frederick," Cherche says. "He is unharmed, and in both good spirits and my husband's good hands. He should be home to you soon, perhaps even within the week, if the summer eases slightly."

              Lissa's eyes are like saucers, welled up with tears.

              "Well, I hope Frederick has him doing push-ups for days!" she says. She huffs and dabs at her eyes with her sleeves. "That'll teach him to make us worry like this!"

              Cherche nods. She'd approach her own son the same way. 

              "Lady Lissa, I appreciate your concern for your son," Cherche says, "but I must speak with the Exalt immediately. It's of grave importance."

              Lissa blinks.

              "Oh, Cherche… he's not here," she says.

              Cherche's smile tightens.

              "Has he not been summoned? I told the stableboy…"

              "No, he..." Lissa says, hesitating. Cherche wonders, fleetingly, if he has _died_ , but that seems altogether a strange turn of events. "He... jeez, can you explain it? I'm all emotional, I'm gonna..." 

              She fans her hand with her face and glances aside. Cherche follows her eyes to see Reiner, who is standing nearby with his hands in his pockets, his broad shoulders slightly hunched. Cherche is unsurprised to see him looking relieved, too, in his own mild way, but he is also too tense to be overjoyed at news of his daughter's safety.

              "Lord Chrom's not here," Reiner says. "At all."

              Cherche glances back at Gerome, but he looks to Reiner, too.

              "Perhaps you could be so kind as to explain the circumstances," Gerome says. "She would hear it from you before me."

              Reiner steps forward.

              "I'm afraid Lord Chrom decided to mount a small party and follow his children," he says. "He's days from here now. The council is upset, understandably, and has assigned Lissa as regent on the interim."

              Cherche isn't sure what to say to that, but she looks to Gerome, who kneels behind her with a tight look on his face and apology in his eyes. She realizes, suddenly, why he is completely unarmored –– she's sure he must have been placed on arrest over this.

              Suddenly, she understands.

              "Did you tell them why we left?" Cherche demands.

              "I told them that Lucina and Morgan went to their mother's house," Gerome says. "Lucina knew where to go. I kept the rest to myself."

              "You didn't leave for Cynthia and Owain?" Reiner says.

              "I only told Princess Lucina about the rumor," Gerome continues, firmly.

              "What rumor?" Lissa demands. She looks to Cherche with wide eyes.

              Cherche pauses, and so there is a dreadful quiver to Lissa's lower lip. Reiner places a hand on her shoulder, gently, and he says: "Listen, it's been a very difficult past few days, Cherche. I don't think we need any more rumors, or to guess at intentions. What rumor is this?"

              Cherche nods. Frederick will be pleased at this truth, at least, though he'd certainly drop dead at the thought of Chrom flying across the countryside after his children.

              "I'm pleased to say I can do away with those things in favour of fact," she says. "Though I regret to say it may be difficult to hear, and concerning, given that the Exalt is not here…"

              Reiner frowns. Lissa's eyebrows knit together. There's a silence on the crowd that Cherche feels acutely aware of, particularly with the knowledge that there will be no secrets anymore. 

              "I can confirm that Ada is alive," Cherche says.

              Lissa's hand flies to her mouth in shock.

              "What?" she says, eyes welling up.

              Cherche feels herself soften. She shifts forward to place a hand on Lissa's knee, comforting.

              "She's in good health, and fair spirits; Sir Frederick and I have seen to her ourselves. In fact, he is still with her right now, alongside Owain and Cynthia."

              "You just–– you rode out to find her, or…?" Lissa asks.

              "Owain and Cynthia found her first," Cherche says. "She then sent correspondence to Frederick with Nowi. We were not sure of her true identity at the time, and so we left to confirm… but now I can say, with some delight, that Naga has delivered her back to this world."

              "That's wonderful," Lissa says, heaving a huge sigh of relief. "But Chrom! Ugh, that moron, if only he'd waited… he'd be so happy to hear…"

              "An amusing turn of events," Cherche agrees.

              "When can we expect them home?" Reiner asks.

              "That is where things are more complicated," Cherche says. "They are escorting her to the house that she claims to have grown up in. After that, they will come home."

              Lissa bursts out laughing suddenly, even with tears rolling down her face. Cherche feels quite startled, but Lissa says through laughter:

              "So Chrom is chasing his kids to the same house that Ada is headed to?"

              Cherche laughs, despite it all.

              "Morons," Lissa says, sniffling. 


	11. Tenacity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrom feels the slow, unbridled fury of being left behind, but he's never been the sort to sit around. He is going to get his children back, and that's that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am drowning.

.

 

 

 

                Grima is nearly finished. 

                The creature that wears his wife's skin is bleeding great trails of black blood across the Fell Dragon's spine, its head slashed at the neck in such a way that has Chrom c _onvinced_ he is carrying out an act of mercy by ending the beast's life. 

                Grima staggers and screams. The _creature_ clutches at its own head with fury, but it doesn't fall. Not yet.

                Chrom raises Falchion and turns it in his grip. The steps of battle have manoevered Ada to his left, a misty image beyond the near-blinding glow of the Falchion. She's ready, armor glimmering and ponytail high on the wind. He's ready, too.

                One more blow and it'll be over.

                It's going to be _his_ strike.

                Chrom surges forward, Falchion dragging behind him and his arms tensing for the swing, for the blow that will end it all. His footing is sure, and he begins to close the distance between him and the enemy, ready for the execution.

                That's when Ada moves in front of him. 

                Chrom sees the light of the Exalted blade reflected in Ada's eyes, a brilliant streak of orange that could kill her.

                She's not supposed to die here.

                Even with momentum thoroughly against him, Chrom flinches, dragging back his swing with such force that he loses his footing. His sword arm falters. He skids out on the slippery scales they're calling a battlefield, and it is by sheer luck alone he doesn't cleave his wife in two. 

                But she doesn't even hesitate, like it doesn't matter how close she is to death at his hands –– like she didn't promise that the last blow was his, like she didn't swear to him she wouldn't risk her life for this.

                Chrom hits the battlefield hard, rolling across the scales and leaving a bloody streak behind him. The Falchion bounces away in the opposite direction. He reaches for it uselessly, grasping at thin air with an arm that screams in agony. He registers the long gash up his forearm. His fingers spasm.

                Even if he had Falchion, it's too late, anyway. Even if he got up in time, it's already over, his wife and his enemy a tangle of black and purple. He watches her bury her blade deep in Grima's gut and drag it upward, spilling black blood and bile liberally. It sprays her face, coats her breast.

                "Ada! What––"

_She'd promised––!!_

                Ada digs at Grima's guts with the sword until Grima is nothing but a whorl of guts disintegrating into the air. She's _saying_ something to Grima, but he's so stunned he doesn't hear what.

                "Ada, no!" he calls. And again, and again: "Ada! Ada! Stop! STOP!"

                But she doesn't even look his way, not until Grima is nothing but black wind. By then, she's fading too, saying her goodbyes, and all he can do is repeat "No!" as she vanishes.

 

* * *

 

                Chrom's eyelids feel heavy, but he can't sleep, even stretched out in his bed. His mind is wide awake, churning with thoughts.

                Thoughts such as: If he could go back in time, he would probably make some very different choices.

 _First,_ he thinks, he would start a proper education in politics much younger. While no monarch ever feels their reign will last forever, as a boy Chrom had somehow never considered that Emmeryn would one day die. Much less, he had never considered she would die before she had an opportunity to marry and have children who would succeed her. He'd expected to be the second child his entire life, with some responsibility and some role in warfare, but he'd never expected to be the Exalt. 

                If he'd spent less time swinging a sword and more time with his nose in books and his ears on his elders, then maybe he wouldn't be so exhausted now trying to fill the void Emmeryn had left to him.

 _Second,_ he would have jumped head-first into ruling right after Emmeryn's death, instead of taking his sweet time to grieve, marry and start having children. While he had settled into pleasant domestics, tyrants like Walhart had risen to power, and his own court had become somewhat adept at ruling Ylisse under a stewardship. Unskilled at politics as he had been (and still is), perhaps he could have prevented a Ylisse poised to annex Plegia –– or at the very least headed off a court prepared to operate with the Exalt as little more than a figurehead.

                And _third,_ well… he would have stopped her. Kept her on his right, where he could see her. Knocked her out, left her behind. Wrested her down, kicked her aside, whatever it would have taken. He'd have waited to think about victory until after Grima was finished, or maybe he would have just let Grima––

                Gods.

                His stomach turns as his thoughts shift. The relative levity of Morgan's birthday seems as far away as his own fifteenth birthday now. He rolls over onto his back so that he isn't facing the sunset beaming through his open balcony doors. Its easier to not see the light bleeding orange through his eyelids.

                Today has been long. Hard.

                With any luck, and with support from his allies, they will be able to keep Ylisse from annexing Plegia, even if only for this week. It'll be a fight to push it off again next week, but he's sure he can drag it out until they find another way to rule, even if it takes all of the political muster in him.

                "Could have used you in there today," he says to Ada's painting. It's not even dinnertime yet and he feels like he could just stay here and sleep. "Maribelle's shoring up my defenses, though. I think we'd be invading Plegia right now if I didn't have her to back me up."

                No response, as always.

                "And all of this is exhausting, Ada, but I'm going to keep doing it," he says. "I want you to be proud of me and everything I've accomplished when you get back, and that means Ylisse has to be in good shape."

                "Ugh," she says, harshly, but it's not actually her. It's another woman.

                Chrom lifts his head just in time to see his posted guard stumbling through the door without even putting up a fight. He knows instantly that it wasn't by choice — not when it's Tharja and her dark magic.

                "Hey!" Chrom says in a low, warning tone. He sits up and reaches for Falchion but he doesn't _quite_ take it.

                Tharja marches into his bedroom with her long fingers curled around Noire's fragile wrist. The teenager stumbles as she follows, unwilling to be dragged but reluctant to be there at all. 

                "Mother––"

                "Pick up your feet," Tharja snaps.

                " _Tharja,_ " Chrom says sharply. "Let her go, you're going to hurt her."

                Noire flashes him an alarmed look over Tharja's cloaked shoulder. Tharja draws herself up a little taller, but she releases Noire's wrist as if she'd like to throw the girl away. Chrom can't imagine ever manhandling Lucina like that, not _ever._ Seeing that, he has half a mind to do as Morgan had asked yesterday and invite Noire to stay with them, even for just a little bit.

                "You've been told several times to not come near my quarters," Chrom says. "Don't make me—"

                Frederick isn't here.

                "I'll have you escorted out," he finishes.

                "Go right ahead," Tharja drawls. She looks down her nose at him. "I just thought you'd want to know what your son is up to _first._ "

                He doubts Tharja would know _anything_ about Morgan that he doesn't, but she'd certainly pretend to, because Tharja is a god damned––

                "Then tell me and go," Chrom says.

                "I overheard Noire and Morgan speaking this morning about _running away_ from home," Tharja says. Tharja beckons Noire forward at that; when her daughter is slow to move, she beckons a little more vigorously. "Didn't you, Noire?"

                Chrom frowns.

                "Well, I can assure you Morgan is still here. He stopped by my meeting not too long ago to say he was going for a ride, and the nurses' update mentioned he was in to see Ryn."

                Tharja folds her arms.

                "And you don't think he could have left in that time?" she says. He hates that tone, hates how condescending it is.

                " _Tharja_ ," Chrom warns. He sighs, though, and addresses Noire instead. "What is this about, Noire?"

                "It was just an idea," Noire murmurs. "I don't think he'll go… but M-Mother takes these things seriously."

                "I understand," Chrom says. "Perhaps you and I can speak then, while your mother waits outside of my quarters."

                Tharja scoffs audibly, but she goes, shaking off the waiting hands of the guards ready to escort her back out. Noire watches her mother go with a tremble to her lower lip, and Chrom has to take a deep breath to calm himself, too. He walks Noire over a chair and beckons her to sit, which she does.

                "What's this about?" he asks.

                Noire swallows her breath.

                "M-Morgan asked if I'd go on an adventure with him," she says. "He told me not to tell anyone but I can't hide secrets from Mother. He didn't say where he was going or why, just that he'd be back in a few weeks, and that he wouldn't go alone."

                Chrom nods carefully.

                "Do you know if he asked anyone else?"

                Noire pauses and nods.

                "He said he would," she says.

                "Okay," Chrom says, and he nods too. "I don't think Morgan is going anywhere, because he and I talked about it just yesterday. So if you see him before I do, tell him we need to talk again."

                "Yes, sir," Noire says, sniffling slightly.

                "Good girl," Chrom says. He pauses. "And Noire?"

                "Yes?"

                "If you want to stay with us sometime, I'm sure Morgan and Lucina would love to have you," he says. "I know things at home aren't always… pleasant."

                Noire sniffles again and nods a little more fervently.

                "Thank you," she says.

                So Chrom gives the girl a firm pat on the shoulder and then regretfully sends her back to her waiting mother. He feels somewhat better, though –– inviting her to stay is a small thing to have done but he feels disproportionately proud of himself compared to everything he's done as the Exalt. As always, it doesn't last. Unsatisfied and too alert to lay back down in bed, he wanders to his balcony, where his eyes fall on two particular riders down below.

                Any parent could tell, even from a hundred yards. It's a special sense, an instinct.

                Chrom watches his children with a frown on his face. They are so tiny against the drawbridge, and they will soon disappear into the town.

                From this distance, he is sure they cannot see that frown. Perhaps, at very most, they see his figure, facing them and framed by a long white cape caught on the wind. They don't see his concern, even though his concern runs so deep he feels he might crack in two. 

                Morgan raises a hand to wave, and Chrom waves back.

                "Don't disappoint me," he says to himself, under his breath. "Please don't disappoint me."

 

* * *

 

                Chrom eats dinner alone that evening; Morgan and Lucina simply fail to show up, and Ryn is still too young for dinner service. The empty chairs around his dinner table make his stomach fall into his gut. What if Tharja was right?

                He doesn't pick up his fork until a servant confirms that no, sir, their horses have not been returned to the stables. _Has anyone seen them?_ No, sir. _What about trouble? Any trouble in the city?_ None at all, sir.

                They must be riding late.

                He picks through a fraction of his dinner of oxtail and rice before he decides he's too stressed to eat. He tells himself that the queasiness in his gut is because he's barely eaten today and has nothing to do with his children having potentially left him, but he still can't eat. And yet he has to trust his guts — he always has.

                "Please check with the city gates," he says to his staff. "All of them."

                Two hours later, a breathless courier returns and says, voice heaving: "They left by the western gates this afternoon."

                Chrom feels a little sick at that, but a little angry too.

                "And they just let my children go? Unaccompanied, at that? And no one thought to tell me?"

                "Exalt Chrom, they were not aware of any imposition stating the Royal children could not leave the city walls."

                Chrom feels his heart fall.

                "Because there weren't any," he says, frustrated, mostly at himself. He didn't think they _would._

                He looks at their empty chairs, their set places and clean china and empty wine glasses. It feels as though he's the one missing, one man all alone. He doesn't even have Frederick casting a shadow over him.

                (Did they leave because they saw an opportunity to slip off when Frederick couldn't dog them? They'd know that the first person he'd turn to on this occasion would be Frederick — but then doesn't that mean believing they were waiting for an opportunity like this all along? That all their conversations had been lies?)

                He's not sure what to do.

                "Did they look prepared for a journey?" Chrom asks.

                "No. They had no baggage or supplies. No arms save Falchion."

                Chrom takes a deep breath. Reasonably, they can't be gone for long without supplies, but he can't shake the feeling of dread in his gut, not for an instant. He doesn't like to be treated like a fool, and that's exactly what it feels like.

                He _shouldn't_ be treated like a fool. He has finished two wars, he tells himself. He had been the driving force in vanquishing Grima. He had gone through trials to prove his mettle before a god, walked through flame and battlefield alike, and taken killing magic to his gut and still walked away.  He has become Exalt and is trying his best to carry that mantle like Emmeryn had. He has managed to raise good, passionate children, and give them the peacetime they deserved to have in their youth.

                Why, then, is he always underestimated? Why, then, do the ones who love him choose to leap in front of his blade, skirt his castle walls, or run off to war? Why can't he keep his family _together?_

                At this rate, Ryn will grow up like he did: surrounded by compassionate people and all the comforts a child could want for, but resentful of her parents for all they had failed to provide her with.

                Chrom finds himself gripping Falchion, as if this were a battle he could just cut his way through.

                "What would you like us to do?" the servant asks, warily.

                "Assemble the Shepherds and their children in Ada's study," Chrom utters.  "One of them must know what's going on."

 

* * *

 

                A row of children stand before him, all of them with their toes lined up with the edge of the carpet in Ada's study. They run the gamut of expressions: some surly, some nervous, some stoic, some proud. Their parents encircle them, a crowd of unimpressed, concerned faces. Between the children elbow-to-elbow and the crowd of Shepherds, the normally-spacious study feels quite tight. His own study would have had more room, but council members and messengers come and go, so Ada's abandoned study is more private. 

                The door is locked. Just Chrom, his friends, and his children's friends. As far as he's concerned, that's all that matters.

                Chrom has never been the type to run interrogations, but after years of being under Frederick's tutelage, he's no stranger to the militaristic tone one uses on misbehaving recruits. But these aren't recruits, though –– they're experienced soldiers, each and every one of them.

                But they're also his friends' children.

                "I want to know why my children aren't home," he says. "And I find it very strange that no one seems to know anything at all as to _why,_ even as their friends… just that they're gone."

                He strolls the line.

                "No one is going to leave this room until I know what's going on. I don't care if the castle crumbles around us –– no one leaves this room."

                "Chrom," Lissa says, plainatively.

                "Let me talk," Chrom says, raising a hand. He walks the line of children again, slower, more impatiently. "Lucina keeps a lot of secrets from me. I know that. I accept that. But she _does_ tell her friends. You all have always been her confidantes."

                There's a stubborn silence from both parents and children, but Chrom can feel the heat of the parents' anxieties, frustrations and concerns on the back of his neck. The children all stand tall, resolute, and still, no one says anything.

                "So we aren't leaving this room until I know what's going on," Chrom repeats.

                Still, silence. 

                Maribelle heaves a sigh.

                "Enough of this," she says, striding forward past Chrom. She stops in front of her son and puts her hands on her corseted waist. "You inform Lord Chrom right this instant, Brady."

                Brady shakes his head, and so Maribelle seizes Brady by the ear and yanks it towards her, _hard._ Brady yowls. Words of encouragement rise up from the other children, imploring Brady not to say anything, but they're drowned out by Maribelle herself.

                "I raised you better than this!"

                "Ahh, jeez! JEEZ!" Brady says. "Okay, okay! Let go and I'll talk!"

                Maribelle lets go.

                "Brady," Severa hisses. Brady looks at the others, but then he looks back to his mother.

                "Look––"

                "Look at _Lord Chrom_ ," Maribelle orders, so Brady does. Chrom meets Brady's eyes with a tension in his jaw. 

                "Look, I told her it's a dumb idea, and people are going to be hurt, and––" He looks at his mother a moment longer; she is glaring at him with an intensity that threatens to burn his skull out. He rattles off: "It's improper behavior for the crown princess and prince of Ylisse, unbecoming of their station and––" He yelps when Maribelle yanks him firmly by the ear again. "AND I shoulda said something as soon as I heard–––aww Ma, _leggo!_ "

                Maribelle releases her son's ear with a huff. 

                "Where are they going?" Chrom demands.

                Brady pauses, and then looks notably flustered. "She didn't say _where,_ exactly," he admits, and Chrom believes him; he looks like he _wants_ to be able to give an answer that will get him out of the hot seat. But Chrom also feels his temper creep hotter, not knowing the answer, and his jaw is set so hard that his teeth ache dully. 

                When he can't look at Brady an instant longer, Chrom strolls the line of children with his eyes forward. They're heroes, every one of them, but they're not protecting the future this time. Right now they're just children, covering for their friends.

                Chrom has never felt so angry with _his_ children before.

                "Who is going to tell me where my children are going?" Chrom demands.

                There's a stubborn silence, except for Brady, who hisses again: "Ma, I got _loyalties_."

                "Come on, Brady," Chrom says. He crosses the line again, back to Brady, who scowls.

                "I got _nothin'_!"

                Chrom looks to Severa next to him. Cordelia's daughter looks surlier than ever, and the moment he meets her eyes, she sneers.

                "Your Highness, we are under her command. On _her_ orders, she is to get a whole day head start before we can tell." Severa folds her arms. "So we can't say. You're wasting your time."

                Chrom's eyes widen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sumia clap a hand over her mouth, and Cordelia frown.

                "So all of you know _exactly_ what she's planned," he says.

                "She doesn't tell us _everything_ ," Kjelle offers. "And often she gives us different information. But orders are orders, sir."

                "Orders?" Chrom utters. " _Orders?_ I am the Exalt of Ylisse, and you are in _my_ employ."

                "With all due respect, milord, we were in hers first," Inigo offers.

                "In another time!" Chrom retorts, moving to Inigo's end of the line. "Where. Are. My. _Children?_ "

                "I'll tell you," someone else offers.

                Chrom turns. Gerome isn't looking at him, but he has stepped a foot ahead of his peers, his hands dutifully held behind his back. Chrom moves right to him. Chrom is hardly a small man, but Gerome stands taller and firmer, which is no difficult task given that he is the son of two very statuesque soldiers.

                He is the only child in this room who doesn't have at least one parent present.

                "Gerome," Severa says, harshly, but Gerome keeps his eyes ahead of him. He doesn't even blink.

                "Lucina and Morgan have gone to find their mother's house," Gerome says.

                Chrom isn't sure if the room has gone silent or if his ears are ringing from shock. He stares at Gerome for a moment, searching for some trace of humor or slyness, but there's nothing. Gerome just looks straight ahead of himself with a firm set to his jaw.

                Their mother. A house.

                "What?" He demands. "A _house?_ "

                "Yes, sir," Gerome says.

                " _What_ house? _Where?_ "

                "I truthfully don't know much about it," Gerome replies.

                "But you know where they've gone?" Chrom demands.

                "I do. I delivered Lucina and Morgan's packs to them on the outskirts of the city and saw them off. That's all the information I have for you."

                Chrom's ears _are_ ringing, his mind racing. He _could_ have expected this from his daughter –– he's never known her to be any other way but duplicitous, even though her intentions have generally been pure of heart –– and yet she can still reveal new truths all the time.

                Her mother, Ada, has a house.

                Ada. A house.

                A _house_?

                He suddenly he feels as though he's in another world, far away from the passionless grey of mourning he'd lived in for four hundred and something days. Suddenly, Chrom has a mission. A call to duty.

                He turns to his friends.

                "Ready my horse," he says to Sumia. He scans the group, rattling off choices. He picks out Lon'qu: "You, get the master of arms to assemble my convoy." To Maribelle: "Tell the council what's happened." Then to Tharja: "Divine something so I know exactly where they are."

                "That's not how it works," Tharja drawls, but he's moving on. 

                "Chrom, what are you thinking?" Lissa demands, her round face fraught with concern. She reaches for his arms, but he's out of reach, pacing away. "Chrom, don't be crazy, let's think about this first."

                "We don't have time to think about it. I'm going after them."

                There's a scramble of voices -- protests, offers of help, concern. Chrom doesn't listen to any of them, but Maribelle seizes him by the arm.

                "Milord, what of Plegia?"

                "Annex it," he snaps. "I don't give a damn. I'm going to get my children."

                Maribelle's pretty face is momentarily clouded by surprise, and she says: "Milord, the entire meeting today, we argued that we—"

                "I said I don't care," he cuts her off. He looks up at the clock. It's approaching midnight. "I have to go."

                "There must be a better plan," Maribelle says. "Do not renounce your plans to hold fast against marching on Plegia. You're acting foolishly."

                "I'm not being foolish," Chrom says. "I'm giving them what they want so I can do what I want without any questions asked!"

                "You need to go get them," Lissa agrees. "But Chrom––"

                "The council won't just _let_ you _go_ ," Maribelle interjects. "You can't give them reason to doubt you, either. Your children need to be retrieved, certainly, but we can send others after them in your stead."

                "No," Chrom says, empathetically, right in her face. "No. _I'm_ going. They're _my_ children. It's _my_ wife. It's her –– it's her _house._ "

                "We've never heard of this house before," Lissa says.

                "So I'm going to find out," Chrom says. "That's not up for negotiation. I just need to find out how to go without the council finding out."

                "That's absurd," Maribelle says.

                "Lord Chrom," Reiner interjects. "Might I suggest how?"

                Chrom nods.

                "Make it fast," he says.

                "Your word is law," Reiner says. "Tell them you must commune with Naga, retire to the chapel and seal the doors. Secretly take your party after your children while they believe you are within –– with the doors sealed, they will have no proof of otherwise."

                "And if they do find out?" Maribelle says.

                "They won't," Reiner says. "You will stock your chambers with enough food, water, and other supplies for at least three weeks' time. You and your staff will be barricaded within — no one in or out. We post guards on the door."

                "Except I'm not all that in tune with spiritual matters," Chrom says. "They won't believe it."

                "They'll have to," Maribelle says, slightly put-off, but Chrom can see she's considering it, too. "You're the Exalt, and an appeal to Naga wouldn't hurt."

                "And they won't be able to prove otherwise," Reiner says. "The only concern is that you'll need a small party to escape unnoticed."

                Chrom thinks this can work. This _will_ work.

                "Gods," he says, and then, almost relieved: "Why aren't you a tactician?"

                Reiner chuckles a little. "There isn't a vacancy," he says.

                Chrom feels a sharp pang.

                "Well, thank you," he says. He looks around his friends and the surly children. His anger settles in his gut, roiling and low. "Let's get going, then."

                "I'll tell the council," Maribelle sighs, and she takes her leave. Reiner and a few others go with her. 

                Chrom has barely opened his mouth to ask who will be going with him when Sumia steps forward.

                "I must insist on going with you, Captain!" Sumia says.

                Chrom looks at her and he has no time to decide, no time to tussle with deciding who may join him and who must stay. He knows he cannot take a large team –– he needs to move fast, light –– but he does need some support.

                "Then ready yourself," he says.

                "Chrom!" Lissa cries. "Chrom, Chrom, take Lon'qu too!"

                She's behind her husband suddenly, pushing him forward by the small of his back. Lon'qu looks vaguely uncomfortable by sheer spontaneousness of it, but he moves forward nonetheless.

                "Lissa, I'm not taking your husband when you're going to have a baby any day," Chrom says, vehemently.

                "I can have a baby on my own if it means knowing you're safe!" Lissa insists. "You have to take him!"

                Chrom looks at Lon'qu, who doesn't seem particularly pleased by this development, but both of them nod.

                "Alright," he says. "And Frederick, please arrange packing."

                There's a slight silence. It strikes Chrom that the Shepherds, a legion of undoubtedly capable men and women, seem somewhat crippled with neither tactician nor great knight nor lead cleric to direct them. In light of that, Chrom's leadership feels particularly fragile.

                "I'll organize that," Cordelia offers.

                "Good," Chrom says. "I'm going to get changed. I want to be on the road within an hour."

 

* * *

 

                Sumia follows him upstairs, her expression fraught with concern. Chrom turns his back on her to keep walking. Sumia is a carer; she's the first to point out when anyone needs to rest, needs to unburden themselves. She's always been the kind who searches out for people to care for –– Chrom thinks sometimes she should have been a cleric or something, where she'd never have to see the frontlines or bury a pegasus.

                She wouldn't throw herself into danger. 

                Any other time, he might appreciate another woman shoring up Maribelle and Lissa's ranks in looking out for him, but Sumia has chosen _now_. Any other time, he'd be appreciative of her sweet heart and concern, but right now he just wants to be left alone if he can't have the mother of his children.

                "Captain, about this whole thing…" she says. She trails off.

                "I'm sorry, Sumia, but I don't really want to talk right now," he tells her.

                "Of course, Captain," she says.

                She's quiet behind him for a moment, and then:

                "Have you even eaten at all today? You're snapping a little."

                He's not sure, for a moment, if she means snapping-angry or snapping-sanity. It could go either way, but he doesn't want to ask. 

                He walks into his quarters and goes right to the wardrobe to seize his old traveling tunic. He marches behind his dressing curtain, yanking it shut behind him so hard that a ring pops off and spins on the rail over his head.

                "Captain?" Sumia says, her voice floating gently past the curtain. Chrom's heart hammers like a war drum.

                "You didn't feel like snapping when Cynthia ran off?" Chrom retorts. "Of course not," he answers himself. "You wouldn't."

                "But have you eaten today?" Sumia asks, patiently. Gods, her tone is so sweet, so impossible to be angry with without feeling like a jerk. He forces himself to meet her halfway.

                "Not really," he says.

                "Then I'll make sure something is packed for you to eat on the way out of the city," she says. She pauses again and he dreads more questions. "Captain?"

                "Thank you, Sumia. You can go," Chrom says. "Go get ready, or…"

                Chrom grits his teeth as he buttons the front placket, fingers shaking over the cool metal clasps. 

                "I'm a little worried about leaving you alone," Sumia says.

                "My wife and children never stopped to consider that," Chrom says. It's unexpectedly bitter off his tongue.

                There's a long pause between them both, and then Sumia brushes the curtain back. Chrom feels utterly vulnerable, standing there with his clothes askew, and he realizes he is leaning a little too much against the wall to seem put together, so he straightens up immediately. 

                She gives him a look of such pity.

                "You're not alone, Captain," she says. "If anything, everyone's ready to rally behind you to ensure that you _aren't_ alone. And…"

                She trails off, as if she'd had something more to say but thought better of it. Chrom presses the heels of his hands into eyes for a minute and then scrapes his fingers back through his hair. He needs to breathe, so he breathes deeply, urging himself not to lose his temper, tear the curtain down, knock the paintings off the walls.

                His children are gone, and they know something about their mother that he doesn't. In a strange, possessive way, that infuriates him.

                He has to breathe.

                "I know," he says, finally. "I know. But I just need a minute."

                But he knows he doesn't have a minute. Every minute he delays is a minute his children are riding off into the distance. Chrom scrapes together what's left of his patience and he yanks on his baldric and buckles it across his chest.

                When he opens the curtain, Sumia is still standing here, heels together, hands wringing together. She's smiling, but it looks queasy, like there's something on the tip of her tongue that she still hasn't said. Chrom feels bad but he doesn't have the time to hear it. He doesn't have the energy right now.

                "I have to say goodbye to Ryn and then we go," he says.

                She nods and follows him all the way there, too.

                The nursery is quiet. Nurse Nan is knitting in the rocking chair, having already set Ryn down to sleep. Chrom acknowledges her with a look, and she acknowledges him with a fond smile.

                "Off again?" she says warmly, with the smallest note of concern. She gestures at his travelling clothes.

                "I'm afraid so," he says. 

                "She just went down to sleep, but she won't fuss," Nan says.

                Chrom reaches into the crib, and though Ryn is drifting off, he lifts her. She doesn't even open her eyes, though she stirs enough to nuzzle her face into his neck and wind a fat little hand into his cape. He strokes her back gently.

                "Be back soon, babygirl," Chrom murmurs to her.

                Someday he will not have to leave her behind.

                He lays her back down to sleep, admires her for a second, and then looks back to Sumia waiting in the doorway.

                "I'm sorry you have to leave her again, Captain," Sumia says.

                Chrom nods.

                "It won't be long."

                He glances at Nan and presses a silencing finger to his lips.

                "You didn't see me," he says.

                "Oh, you never grew up," she says, scolding but so lighthearted it just rolls off of him. She's not quite mother to him, but she's the closest he's ever had.

                "Thanks," he says.

                This time he follows Sumia, and he follows the bobbing wings of her hairpiece down the stairs and across the castle to the chapel, past the watching eyes of a few council members along the way. When he passes through the doors, Sully and Stahl pull them firmly closed at his heels, hiding him from sight. No one in or out.

                In the time he's taken to dress, they've begun filling the chapel with food and drink and bedding, piling it around the walls. Someone's dragged one of his chairs in, too, front and center, the great mark of Naga beaming at him from the head of the aisle.

                Libra stands at the altar with his arms folded. He looks surprisingly relaxed, though tired as usual.

                "Last chance to back out," Chrom says upon approach. He feels anxious, itching to just go –– every moment he waits is another moment that Morgan and Lucina gain ground –– but Libra looks at him with such fortitude that Chrom feels tempered.

                "There isn't a chance in the world," Libra says, warmly. "Of course, I would appreciate your errand not lasting longer than a month, but if it takes years, I will endure."

                "Good man," Chrom says. 

                "And everyone else?" Chrom says. "Everyone else ready, no objections?"

                "We're fine," Sully says. "Get going. By now your horses should be ready down below, and your supplies are getting flown to the gates."

                "Thank you."

                Chrom moves past them all, to the window where Nowi had burst through barely two days ago. Sumia's already climbed onto her waiting pegasus, and Chrom gets on behind her. He braces himself against her waist for the flight, and then they're off.

 

* * *

 

                Finding out where his children have been is easy. Closing the distance, not so much.

                While Lucina and Morgan leave a trail of tell-tale camps across the countryside, easy to find by following the roads and a little bit of scouting from the air, it's much harder to overtake them. Chrom and Lon'qu's horses have no more endurance or speed than his children's horses do, and pegasus, while useful, are woefully ill-equipped for stamina. 

                Chrom's patience dwindles, but there's nothing to do but stay dogged and determined. 

                "Do you think they'll answer the door if we knock?" Lon'qu asks at one point, dryly. With Sumia flying ahead so often, he's a strange travel companion –– he's surprisingly conversational, if engaged, but he's far from Frederick's constant commentary and Lissa's effusiveness. 

                Ada's smiling, sneaky banter.

                "Do you really believe there's a house?" Chrom asks Lon'qu.

                Lon'qu just shrugs.

                "I don't know," Chrom admits.

                They've been through this region before and never seen a house, or any hide nor hair of anyone living out in the mountains. Plegia Castle is some distance away, but the mountains straddle the border, neither Plegian nor Ylissean. Chrom can't imagine anyone living out here. It seems like such a lonely place to live.

                The only life out here seems to be the cicadas, which are loud –– almost oppressively so. While he's heard them last time they'd traveled through this region, on the war campaign to get to Plegia Castle, this time they seem _closer_. There's no humanity out here, no lights, no people, _nothing_ as buffer between him and hundreds of miles of rolling hills and mountains and valleys deep.

                It's just the wild.

                In truth, he's never been so far from the common roads –– princes are made to dutifully take well-worn paths, not explore. It's so far from society that he's certain he could die out here, if it came to trouble, and yet he feels as though nothing could stand between him and what's before him.

                His children, his future. A _house_ , the only thing left of Ada's past.

                He thinks of the last time they'd passed through, fleeing the conflict. Ada had been sick, her hair plastered to her forehead and her voice shaking. They'd left their tent because she had sweat through their sheets and the fall night air promised some relief. She'd said: "We need to further away from Plegia Castle."

                And though he'd had his own brush with death, the ache of her lightning wound coursing through him, he'd hunched over her and said: "It's okay. We're going far away. You're safe now."

                Within a month, she was gone.

 

* * *

 

                The distance goes by without Chrom really noticing. Before he knows it, they've been on the trail for days. For most of it, it's just him and Lon'qu, but Sumia joins them in the evenings, and they make awkward small-talk around their little campfires and take turns sleeping.

                He feels like he's in a fog. An angry, tense fog.

_His wife and her house._

                In his mind's eye, she's sitting across from him at the table. Her robe is tied lazily, one sleeve dipping well off her shoulder, her knee tucked up so he can see the underside of her thigh. Her skin is rosy pink from the bath. Ada smiles at him. The curve of her mouth has a stronger pull on him than any other force on the planet, he thinks. 

                "Chrom," she laughs. "You're staring."

                "I miss you," Chrom replies, as he always does. He wants to go to her, to hold her, even if only to hear her rant about some book he'll never get around to reading, or ramble about some mad battle maneuver idea she'd come up with. Something to do with training pegasus to fly into the dark, making it impossible for the enemy to keep them in range.

                But she's gone. He'd been dreaming.

                Chrom stares up at the sky, the black canopy giving way to a deep blue sky and thousands of stars. Lon'qu and Sumia are talking softly, and he just tunes it out to imagine what Ada might say to him –– _I miss you too, but hey, did you want to see a play in town tonight?_

                But then he hears his name.

                "Oh, poor Chrom," Sumia says, voice thick and wet. "I feel awful, really awful."

                "Keep your voice down," Lon'qu says.

 _Convenient,_ Chrom thinks. He _would_ wake up right now, just to hear that. He sits up and peels himself from his bedroll. They're not by the fire, which is naught but orange embers at this hour. They're just up the hill, two dark figures silhouetted by night sky.

                "I think I need to tell him," Sumia gulps. "If it were me and anything happened to Reiner, I don't know what I'd do..."

                "And then where would we be?" Lon'qu asks. "Think of his children, Sumia. He needs to focus on them. Don't complicate things needlessly."

                Chrom picks himself up to his feet and moves up the hill with a heaviness in his heart, and a feeling of dread in his gut. He drifts towards their voices like he's still dreaming.

                "I know, I know," she says, "Would he be angry with me? I've tried my best but I think I made a mistake…"

                "You're rambling, woman," Lon'qu says, low, obviously uncomfortable. "Breathe!"

                "Oh, I'm so _stupid!_ " Sumia wails.

                "How are you stupid?" Lon'qu asks.

                Chrom watches their conversation with a growing feeling of discomfort. Sumia is weeping quietly, or is at least _trying_ to keep quiet — she keeps stifling herself with a hand over her mouth, and Lon'qu seems to be growing increasingly uncomfortable, helpless to comfort her with anything but words.

                "I'm stupid for not realizing it," she says, and then Sumia meets Chrom's eyes. She falls silent and Lon'qu turns sharply to look his way, his dark brows furrowed. Chrom freezes, still far from their reach.

                "What didn't you realize?" Chrom asks, carefully ruled.

                "Oh, Captain," she says, like her heart is aching. "The _poem_."

                "What about it?"

                "Sumia," Lon'qu says, curtly. Warning.

                "I meant to tell you when we were still in Ylisstol," Sumia confesses, tearily. "But then Lucina and Morgan left, and I couldn't tell you something to get your hopes up when you had to find your children."

                "What do you mean?" Chrom asks. His blood runs cold. Hope is a dangerous word with him — there's really only one thing in his life, after all, that can only be accomplished through hope. Everything else only needs a good head on his shoulders, a bit of elbow grease and a sword in his hand. _Ada_ demands hope.

                "Captain," Sumia says, miserably, and yet her eyes are bright. "That poem is one Ada and I read together."

                He's had four hundred days to learn to stifle his heart when he hears her name, but there it is again, a little shock to his system.

                "You two read a lot of things together," he says, carefully. "What makes this one so special?"

                "I didn't think it was, but we debated it and what it meant for a week, once," Sumia says. "Years ago! And when Gerome mentioned it, I had a thought..."

                Chrom feels his heart sink. He finds himself looking at Lon'qu, but the swordmaster just stands there with his arms stiffly at his sides, eyes unfocused.

                "The last lines are about being resurrected, aren't they?" Sumia asks. " _Like a child from the womb, a ghost from the tomb…"_

                " _I arise again_ ," Chrom finishes. His heart is in his gut.

                Sumia nods so fervently.

                "The message was from Owain and Cynthia," Chrom says, pointedly. He wants to believe her, but he has spent over a year learning to live without Ada, and with the possibility close at hand, he's suddenly afraid. If he doesn't doubt Sumia, he'll run headlong into believing it, and as much as he wants to embrace the idea, he'd be crushed if they were wrong. He's not sure he could do it all again.

                "Cynthia knows the poem," Sumia says, "and Owain sends you poetry and literature. Isn't that good cover for a message?"

                "I think you're stretching it," Chrom says, "and that doesn't make it true. I think you _want_ to believe it, Sumia."

                Sumia's eyes widen, and she wrings her hands together. She looks up at him with such earnest hope that he can't help but feel it burn in his heart, too, and then she says it: "Don't _you?_ "

                A silence falls on them.

                "Of course I do," Chrom says. "More than _anything_. But why would she hide herself, or set up clues? Why wouldn't she just _send word_?"

                "I don't know," Sumia says. "But she's always got a plan, doesn't she?"

                That's true. Unarguably true. Chrom lets himself believe it a little bit then, lets the idea sink in. He imagines what he might say to her, if she really were here, or what she would say to him. Would she smile at him, reach for him and say _trust me, I have it all figured out_? Would he just accept it and move on?

                Of course she would.

                He's always taken her plans in stride. Ada has a plan? Wonderful. Throw all our resources at it, divert armies, burn ships, cross continents, move heaven and earth to see her plans carried out. Trick Validar into believing he has control –– Chrom can take the hit, even if she didn't warn him it was coming. Call Lucina's bluff, risk death at her daughter's hands, lay down her life –– she knows what she's doing. Face Grima head-on –– her action, her consequence, her funeral.

                He thinks of the orange light of Falchion reflected in her eyes, the way she'd surged to bury her blade in Grima _first._ She'd had a plan then, too, one that banked on him trusting her. He _did_ trust her.

                Chrom pushes past that thought.

                He isn't sure what he'd say if she's returned but not told him, but he'd rather fall on his own blade than feel that weight on his heart.

                "Owain and Cynthia," Chrom says. He looks at his companions with some seriousness. "Would they abandon their posts to find her? Or if she told them to?"

                "Milord," Lon'qu deadpans, coming back to focus. "There's no doubt at all that Owain would."

                Sumia just nods.

                "Cynthia would listen to her," she says. "She's a good girl."

                Chrom leaves that in silence. He's not sure now; in fact, he's very afraid. 

                "Does Lucina know?" he asks. "Is that _why_? I don't understand where the house figures in."

                Sumia looks to Lon'qu, but he is staring into the distance again, deep in thought.

                "I don't know," she says. "Does she know the poem?"

                Chrom shakes his head slowly.

                "I didn't tell her the poem," Chrom says. "Maybe Morgan did, but I doubt Morgan was the one to plan this. He's not the type to run off and save the world himself. Not like Lucina…"

                "There's no mention of any house in the poem," Lon'qu says. "She still knows more that we don't –– she may be in contact with my son, but how? And would she take off without telling you?"

                "Undoubtedly," Chrom says immediately. He laughs, despite himself. "Where do you think she got that from?"

                Sumia giggles a little, wiping away tears.

                "Not you, Captain."

                "Not me," Chrom agrees. 

                "But Lucina is heading west, into very empty lands," Lon'qu says. "How does she know where to go? We do not even know where my son and Cynthia are going."

                "The western passage is desolate," Sumia says. "She picked a dangerous road."

                "And she knows it," Chrom agrees. "Maybe she had it planned with Owain and Cynthia, before they even left –– but no, they'd have to find her in the first place. But even so, whatever incentive she had to go to this _house_ now, without telling me, without any planning that I could guess… "

                He pauses.

                "Ada must be it."

                Lon'qu clears his throat. Both look to him, and he watches them with tired eyes and a furrowed brow for a beat, and then he says: "None of this answers the most pertinent question. Why would Ada hide her intentions from us –– from you, most of all –– and convince no less than half a dozen people to maintain that silence?"

                Chrom feels that silence heaviest of all, and yet, in the place where he usually feels angry or hurt for being left behind once more, he just feels a sadness. After all this time, despite all his doubts, he still wants to feel a deep trust in her decisions and her reasons for making them. 

                Surely, if she would keep her resurrection as a secret, then there is something she is protecting him from, or something has happened to her to cloud her judgement. Surely the silence from her would-be accomplices is for the best, too. They are all people he trusts implicitly.

                And truthfully, Ada had never lied to him until Grima had started wrapping his fingers around her. Then, and only then, she had started hiding things and plotting and planning without his consult. Sometimes it's easy to tell himself she'd been callous about it when he wants to be angry with her for leaving him, but he knows it's not true.

                After all, there had been so many nights where he'd woken up to her sitting up in bed, staring into the dark. There were so many times in those months building towards the conflict on Origin Peak where he'd found her talking to herself, or gripped by some panic that she'd lose her mind. She hadn't told him a lot of things, he had figured, because she'd been adamant about maintaining the image of sanity. She didn't want to admit weakness, or let the army think, for even a second, that she had been compromised.

 _If people think I'm a liability,_ she'd said, _I'll believe it too._

                And now, standing in the wild and facing the possibility that she really is alive again, Chrom just feels sad that even after Grima, she might not trust _herself._

                "Do you think sheremembers us?" Chrom asks, quietly.

                Sumia nods fervently, immediately.

                "She remembers the poem," Sumia says. "She remembers enough to know Nowi, and Owain, and Cynthia."

                "I do not doubt that she remembers," Lon'qu says, firmly. "But the question still stands. _Why_ hide her intentions?"

                Sumia shakes her head, and then she looks to Chrom. Chrom feels both of their gazes, hot on his skin, and he has to look away to think.

                "She might not be well," Chrom says, finally. It feels like a confession, an admission. "I don't doubt that she'd hide herself away for a bit, but it wouldn't be a sign of anything good. She wouldn't be herself."

                Lon'qu is silent, and so is Sumia. To fill the void, Chrom adds: "Maybe she hasn't convinced them of anything. Maybe she doesn't remember, and all the children are masterminding this. Maybe they're trying to help her without worrying me."

                "Milord," Lon'qu says, "your children have run off through dangerous territory. If worrying you was their concern, they would be honest with you from the beginning. I think they're focused on their mother."

                "True," Chrom says.

                That damned silence strikes again. Chrom wonders what could be so terrible that Ada would hide it from him, and that their allies would agree to hide. He doesn't have a clue. Chrom has never felt like he couldn't guess what she was thinking, what she was planning.

                "I need a moment," Chrom says, and he walks away from them without even acknowledging a response. His feet carry him numbly back down the hill, back to his bed roll.

 

* * *

 

                Breakfast feels bitter. The apples that grow out in the valley are very sweet, but not enough to shake the feeling of dread that settles on Chrom's shoulders as a heavy cloak. He and Lon'qu don't talk while they pack up camp, and when Sumia comes back from scouting to breathlessly inform them that she's spotted Lucina and Morgan ahead, it doesn't do much to lift the weight.

                "We're not going to overtake them," Chrom says.

                Both Lon'qu and Sumia look at him, confused.

                "Milord," Lon'qu says. "Surely we should confront them, at the very least, whether we continue on to the house or turn back."

                "No," Chrom says.

                Sumia frowns. Lon'qu just stares ahead, deadpan.

                "This is what we're going to do," Chrom says. "We're going to keep an eye on them, but we're not going to let them know we're here."

                "They'll spot me," Sumia says.

                "If they do, then we'll leave it in their hands. We'll keep a safe distance; close enough that they can come find us, but far enough that we aren't on their heels."

                "Why?" Lon'qu asks.

                "Lucina didn't tell me for a reason. If we confront her, she's still not going to tell me. I want to see what she's doing."

                Both pause, but Sumia smiles.

                "Good idea, Captain! We'll get to the bottom of it."

                Lon'qu just nods. He never argues.

                Chrom feels confident. He has to know the truth.

 

* * *

 

                Morning comes with ugly news. Sumia and her pegasus glide to the surface, close enough to nearly spook Chrom's horse, and her face is alight with concern.

                "Did you find them?" Chrom asks.

                "No," Sumia says. Her great round eyes are glassy. "I found their camp and turned around right away… they fought something off. They lost a horse."

                "Let's go," Chrom says.

                Chrom and Lon'qu reach what's left of Morgan and Lucina's camp with a sense of dread hanging over them. Unlike the last four meticulous camps they'd come across, this one had been hastily packed and with no effort to hide their tracks. The campfire is still assembled, embers burning low, and a few miscellaneous items are scattered about. The dead horse is sprawled out on its side, its gut already bloating. There are dead Risen.

                And then there's the _blood,_ strewn across the ground in dark, sun-roasted splatters.

                Chrom feels his heartrate pick up.

                Chrom moves to the blood immediately and picks up the shirt of maille discarded nearby. It hangs heavily between his hands, and he scrutinizes it for a second.

                "Whose maille is that?" Lon'qu asks.

                Chrom can't tell — not with much precision, anyhow. Maille is too uniform, too shapeless. It could easily be one as much as the other. 

                "I don't know," he admits. And then, with a sinking feeling as he notices the broken rings in the blood: "But whoever it is, they took a blade right through."

                "Where?" Lon'qu asks. He's standing over the corpse of a Risen, the body already set in rigor mortis. When Lon'qu turns it with his foot to check for wounds, the arm snaps at the shoulder. _Crack._

                Chrom touches his hand to his side, to the fleshy spot between ribs and hip. "Right there," he says.

                Lon'qu frowns.

                "That could easily take a kidney," he says. Chrom is sure he's paled, because Lon'qu raises a hand and continues: "Risen don't carry people off, though."

                "So they got away," Chrom says. "They must have gotten away."

                Lon'qu nods.

                "Either way, they won't be moving too quickly anymore."

                "We have to overtake them now," Chrom asks.

                "It would be easy to, if they're limping," Lon'qu says.

                "Sumia, scout ahead," Chrom orders, but he doesn't need to –– Sumia is already taking off, rising up in the sky on broad white wings.

 

* * *

 

                Sumia doubles back to them some time later, her pegasus heaving and tired. Sumia clutches a hand to her heart when she approaches them.

                "They're up ahead, Captain," Sumia says.

                "Are they alive?" Chrom asks, immediately. "Injured?"

                Sumia hesitates, and then she says: "I don't know. They're both upright, at least."

                "Lead the way," he says.

                Chrom has never moved so fast. The wind whistles in his ears as he crouches low in the saddle, nudging his horse into a sprint. It's never as fast as he would like –– horses are built for flat terrain –– but his children are somewhere ahead. They cover miles with a dogged determination.

                As they hit another peak, Chrom hears Morgan shouting: _Luci, Luci._  

                His heart jumps into his throat. Adrenaline takes over.

                His horse is struggling on the incline so he slides from the saddle and hits the ground running. He makes it up over the rise, boots scrabbling on the rocks and his heart in his throat. He looks down on his children, Morgan on his knees at Lucina's side. She's fallen.

                "Dad!?" Morgan croaks, but his disbelief vanishes under a thick cloak of panic. "Father, she got stuck, she was _hurt_ –– and then she fell, _she fell!"_

                Chrom drops to his knees at Lucina's side, and he cradles her head in his hand. She barely reacts beyond her eyes moving under her eyelids, even when he grips her hand firmly and _squeezes._

                "Did she hit her head?" Chrom demands. "When she fell?"

                "I didn't _see!_ " Morgan cries.

                Chrom curses under his breath.

                "I need a healer!" Chrom calls behind him. Sumia is landing, Lon'qu is sliding from horseback.

                Lucina's eyes flutter open. She looks _confused_.

                "I thought you were mother," she says, quietly.

                "You're stuck with me, I'm afraid," Chrom replies. Gods, his heart is rushing, and the whole affair suddenly seems grounded, easier to deal with: all that matters is seeing Lucina through. "Why didn't you turn back?"

                "Thought it was easier to keep going than turn back," Lucina says, and she closes her eyes again. She mumbles: "Thought maybe… she'd be there. And Cynthia, she knows white magic."

                "Lucina," Chrom says, "why here? Why would you travel here?"

                If she thought for even a second that he could have been her mother on the hill, let alone thought it more likely to be her mother than her living, breathing father –– well, it must be true.

                But he needs to hear her say it.

                Lucina looks up at him with half-lidded eyes, hazy and unfocused.

                "Mother," Morgan says for her. "We came out here to find mother."

                Morgan has tears streaming down his face.

                "She didn't want me to tell you," he bawls, "I'm so sorry, father, I made a huge mistake!"

                Chrom looks at his son.

                "Hey," he says. "We'll talk about that later, okay?"

                Morgan bites his lower lip and nods vigorously. Chrom turns his attention right back to Lucina, whose breathing is shallow –– shallow enough to make him nervous. Her bandaging has soaked clear through. That's not good at all.

                Sumia drops to her knees at their side, an blue glass bottle of elixir at the ready. She uncorks it with her teeth.

                "You have to elevate her," Sumia says.

                "I'm going to lift you up to sit, okay?" Chrom warns Lucina, and she tenses her jaw just slightly but doesn't respond. He takes her under the arms and hauls her up in lap the tiniest bit, just to elevate her head. Sumia brings the bottle to Lucina's mouth and pours it in, and Lucina chokes a little but swallows. 

                Chrom has only assisted a medic twice in his life, and he feels far too ill-prepared for it now, leaning protectively over his daughter. Sumia doesn't seem worried, though, her face fixed in determination and her hands steady as she starts to unwind the bandaging to look at the wound.

                "That's the strongest we've got," Sumia says, "but they're not really meant for flesh injuries…"

                "Don't worry about it, let's just do what we can," Chrom says, quickly.

                "We'll get you patched up, Lucina," Sumia promises.

                Lucina nods, very slightly. She's already got some colour in her face again, but she makes no effort to move. She lays in his lap almost bonelessly, and Chrom brushes her bangs from her face. Chrom doesn't look at the wound, but he sees Sumia flinch when it is revealed. Lucina reaches for her father's wrist and clutches it hard, fingers digging in. She's remarkably calm otherwise, her expression steeled and her teeth grit.

                "We have to turn you if we're going to stitch this closed," Sumia says, worriedly, "I'm so sorry, sweetheart."

                "It's okay," Lucina breathes, through her teeth.

                Chrom grips her by the forearm and helps turn her over so she's on her side. Lucina lets out a muffled hiss as they move her, and her forehead falls against his knee suddenly. Chrom nearly loses his nerve but Sumia leans in to still him.

                "She's just passed out. That's okay," Sumia says. "It'll be okay, she'll feel less."

                Some consolation that is. 

                Chrom doesn't breathe again until Lucina is all stitched up, and after that, they just have to sit and wait.

 

* * *

 

                With Lucina resting, properly bedded down in the shade of a tree and Sumia looking after her, Chrom gets up and flags down Morgan, who is sitting with Lon'qu in awkward silence.

                "Hey," he says. He nods off to the side. "Let's go for a walk."

                Morgan joins him a little reluctantly.

                Chrom walks him a fair distance away, up the hill.

                "You're angry, aren't you?" Morgan says.

                "Yes," he says, without hesitation. "Completely furious, if I'm being honest. Lucina nearly got herself killed. She would actually be dead if we hadn't followed you."

                "I know," he says, quieter.

                "What were either of you thinking?" Chrom demands, but it's rhetorical, because he barrels on: "She's supposed to be responsible for you, but she put herself and you in danger. Neither of you spoke with me or said _anything_ , you just assumed—"

                He sighs angrily. Morgan just watches him, shamefully silent, but he nods.

                "Never again," Chrom orders. "We were supposed to be done with this… all the secrets, and the plans…"

                "I'm sorry, Father," he says. "But we had a good reason––"

                "What good reason?" he demands. "Why am I the last to know?"

                Morgan's eyes widen.

                "Lucina didn't tell me until she me out here!" Morgan says. "But Lucina said you didn't know how to mourn her. She said you'd be heartbroken if we were wrong, so we couldn't say!"

                Chrom feels his throat close up for a moment.

                "Morgan," he says, at a loss for other words. "Things… things have been really rough, kiddo, I'm not going to deny that, but I still want to know. I don't want you two to run off."

                "I walked in on you crying and I didn't... I didn't want to make it worse, so I thought if I brought Mother home, it would be fine—" Morgan pauses and steels himself, but his eyes are welling up. "You were so busy, I didn't think you'd notice, and we could just bring her home."

                Chrom feels his heart wrench. He'd felt so ashamed at his son having seen him weep when he is supposed to be a pillar of strength in their family, but he supposes he's done a poor job of being strong in the way his children needed. The good of Ylisse at the cost of his children.

                For a bitter second, he wonders if he has any right to call himself better than his own father.

                "Morgan, no, no, no."

                Chrom takes his son's hands and kneels before him to peer up at his face.

                "You're such a good boy, Morgan," Chrom says, quietly. "I'm... I'm not happy about this, obviously, but your heart was in the right place. Okay? That's all that matters now."

                Chrom sighs and pulls his son into his arms. Morgan sinks into his lap bonelessly, and Chrom sits them both down in the grass to hold his boy and pet his hair. 

                "It's going to be okay, Morgan," he says.

                "But what if Lucina—" Morgan chokes and doesn't continue.

                "Lucina will be fine," Chrom promises. That, he feels relatively sure of, even if it terrifies him to be so far from help with so few resources. "She's tougher than you and me combined, you've seen me get up from worse, right?"

                Morgan nods against his shoulder. Chrom leans his cheek against the side of Morgan's head.

                "Morgan?" Chrom says, gently.

                "Yeah?" Morgan mumbles.

                "Where's this house?" Chrom asks. "What is this house?"

                Morgan sits back on his heels and wipes at his eyes and takes on a look of tentative excitement.

                "Mother's house," Morgan says. "Lucina found it years ago. It's the house mother grew up in."

                "And where is this house?" Chrom asks.

                Morgan looks around them for a second and then points.

                "Lucina said it was close."

                "Let's see if we can see it, then," Chrom says. He gets to his feet and offers his hand to Morgan, who takes it firmly. 

                Together they walk up the hill, picking their way around the rocks. Chrom thinks back to Morgan's story for a moment, about the man dragging his stone wife up the hill only to drop her to the bottom, and he winds his fingers a little tighter around Morgan's. Up they go, though, safe and sound, using the rocks like stairs. Any horse would struggle on these inclines, or need to wind back and forth to get up.

                They reach the top, and as Chrom finds his footing on the broad crest of the peak, Morgan lets out a whoop.

                Chrom sees it and feels his heart lock up.

                It's real. It's really there.

                Just down the hill, cozy in the midst of apple orchards a hundred yards off the lake. It's a modest little place with a thatched roof and shuttered windows, and a porch around the front. Chrom thinks he can see a swing bench on the porch. It's all overgrown, but it doesn't look terribly abandoned otherwise.

                He had known Ada for five years or so. It can't have been abandoned that long.

                "Is that it?" Chrom says, and his voice feels small.

                "It's even closer than Lucina said it was," Morgan says, thrilled. 

                The grass rustles in the wind, loud across the valley, and the house doesn't vanish when he blinks. Chrom feels his stomach twist.

                "Well," Morgan says. "Let's go." 

                Chrom just nods.

                "We'll get the others," he says. "And then… yes. Let's go."

                He's never felt so nervous.

                 _What if she isn't there?_

                He entire being feels tense, nervous. So much has happened.

                 _What if she_ is?


	12. Death, and His Brother Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Under the old eaves of the mother's house, Chrom contemplates moving on, regardless of what the future holds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg

.

 

 

 

                The rocks are hard to pass, especially with Lucina in tow. The valley below is worlds easier, and yet as the little house comes into view, Chrom finds the distance becomes harder and harder to close. By time they're getting close, the skies are greying and the wind is picking up for a storm.

                Morgan runs ahead of them, running through the long grass, the heads of daisies bouncing off his ankles as he passes, his mother's old coat sweeping behind him. Chrom follows at a mere walk. The house grows taller the closer they get to it, and more _real_. By time they're at the edge of the yard –– whatever a yard is, out here –– Chrom is ready to be rid of this tension.

                "They're not here," Lon'qu says, dryly.

                "How do you know?" Chrom asks.

                "There's no horses," Morgan pipes up. "No horses, no sign of anyone having been here…"

                Chrom's not disappointed; he's not sure that he expected her to be here in the first place. You don't just walk up to an old house, open the door and see your dead wife sitting on the porch with a cup of tea and a book.

                "It's okay," Lucina says, voice soft from the makeshift litter they'd built for a horse to drag. Not a fun ride, over the rocks, but better than the saddle. "She'll still get here."

                "We beat her here," Morgan agrees, completely undeterred.

                Chrom catches Lon'qu's eye. The swordsmaster has his mouth in a firm line. He doesn't like this, Chrom figures. That's to be expected.

                "We're here," Chrom says. "We might as well look around."

                Chrom crosses the yard, following Morgan. Morgan skips up the two steps of the porch. The wood creaks a little, and Chrom moves a little gingerly, when he gets there even though it holds his weight firmly.

                "I'm so excited," Morgan pipes up. "Mother's house!"

                "Let's wait for the others to catch up," Chrom says, as Morgan's hand strays to the front door. Morgan instead follows the wall of the house, peering in the dusty windows, cupping his hands around his face to shade his eyes and peer in.

                Sumia catches up first, having hitched the horses, and Lon'qu drags Lucina's litter by hand until they're at the foot of the porch steps.

                "The key is in the garden," Lucina says. She looks happier than she's been in months, despite being pale as a sheet. "Behind the wood carving of the bird."

                Chrom looks around and sees it, partially obscured by an overgrown garden plant, so he cuts through the plants to fish it out. It's just a chunk of wood that someone had taken a small knife to, hacking out a rather misshapen and unfortunate looking bird. Its feet have stubby toes and its beak is much too big for its head. The key is stuck to the back in an equally misshapen groove.

                "Good thing she went into strategy and not art," Morgan says, drawing a laugh from Sumia and a smile from Lucina, but Chrom is too tense to find it funny. He just flips back the plank and finds a single brass key nailed to the back. He pulls it off without much trouble.

                "How long did it take you to find this the first time?" Chrom asks, holding the key up. He's not going to ask when she was here, or why, or how. That's just Lucina, his child of mysteries.

                "It was on the kitchen table," Lucina admits. "The door was unlocked when I found it, but I locked it when I left."

                "Hmm," Chrom hums. He tromps back through the overgrown weeds to the front door. With his jaw set, he unlocks the door but doesn't open it. He hesitates. "I feel like we shouldn't do this."

                "Why not?" Morgan asks.

                "Because if your mother _is_ alive and coming here, she should see it first."

                "So we sleep on the lawn for days, possibly weeks?" Lon'qu says pointedly. "What of the girl's injury?"

                "I know," he says, tightly.

                He catches Lucina's eyes. She looks so happy but so feeble, and he knows there isn't any other option –– at least not any he can justify with something other than sentimentality.

                He turns the handle then, and the door creaks on its hinges as it swings open.

                Chrom steps in.

                It's immediately strange to be in a place untouched for a handful of years. Everything is dressed nicely, neat and tidy, as if it had been prepared for guests that had never come. There's a thin layer of dust on every surface, and a staleness on the air, but it smells of old wood. The drawn curtains have spared the modest tapestries and rugs from fading with the sun, but the curtains themselves are bleached in the middle from cheerful yellow to a buttermilk colour. The counters are clear, and the small table is set for two with a blue glass vase in the middle. The vase is emptied of flowers and sitting barren, but there's a crusted ring where water had once been.

                Chrom moves through the cottage with his hand on Falchion despite his distinct confidence that any life lurking in this place will be a resident squirrel at absolute most. People lived here once, maybe, but not now. As he passes a sideboard he spies a dusty picture frame, so he picks it up and brushes the glass clear with his sleeve. Inside is a painting of a middle-aged woman and a young girl; both woman and child have bright hair, grey eyes and pale faces.

                His heart could just stop.

                She could be alive again.

                "Grandmother and mother," Morgan says, leaning over his arm.

                "I guessed," Chrom says.

                He scruntizes the woman. So this is who they owe for having had Ada in their lives –– a woman who had lived through whatever twisted breeding plan the Plegians had devised to produce an heir to Grima, and lived through self-exile, and then, Chrom can only assume, eschewed society to safeguard her only living child.

                He thumbs over Ada's young face, gently; she looks familiar to him, and the light in her eyes captures him for a moment. Did she always look that happy? It's such a change from the sad portrait he'd stared at every day for well over a year.

                He looks at Lucina, who Sumia helps onto the porch. She doesn't look well, certainly, and she's extremely uneasy on her feet, but there's a smile on her face that Chrom has sorely missed.

                "Do you _really_ think she's coming here?" he asks her.

                The thought that Ada is alive beats in him stronger and stronger, suddenly. No skepticism could possibly temper that renewed thought: he could have her back again.

                Lucina nods.

                "I know it," she says.

                His chest hurts.

_This is real._

                Chrom strides on through the house –– it's so small that it's more of a cottage, really. There's a single hall that leads to two other rooms. The open door of one reveals a wide bed with a sturdy frame and a dull blue quilt, and the other door is closed tight but unmistakeable: there's a little plaque on the door with letters carved into it.

_Robin's Room_

_Robin._ Not Ada, _Robin_. Chrom supposes that makes sense, but he lets go of Falchion and stands in front of that door and prays for the strength and resolve to not fall to pieces. He reaches to touch the door, his heart wrenching, and his fingertips trail across the plaque.

                "Dad?" Morgan says, quietly.

                "Come here," Chrom replies, with a lump in his throat.

                Morgan trots over, eyes roving everywhere, his grey irises nearly black with how wide his pupils are.

                "This is cool," Morgan says, and then he sees the plaque. "Is that..."

                He reaches for the handle, and Chrom grabs his wrist before he can even think. Morgan looks up at him, confused.

                "Father?" Morgan says, a little soberly.

                "No," Chrom says. "No, we can't go in."

                "Why not?" Morgan asks.

                Chrom doesn't know what to say. He just swallows his breath and loosens his grip on Morgan's wrist, and he looks away for a second to think. _Think, think, think. Why not? Why not?_

                He thinks of Ada — how can he not think of Ada? — and he imagines her laughing at him for being so sentimental over an old bedroom door he's never seen before in his life, but he thinks of every time he held her when she wept about not knowing her past. He thinks of their wedding day, when she'd looked a little mournfully at the crowds and all the people there to see their wedding, and she'd said to him: _all these people know my face now, and still, nobody has come to claim me._

                There'd been an unspoken worry there that Ada had never really expressed to him before that very moment: whoever she was before him, she was alone. Not a single friend or family member from her old life appeared. "Not even for _money_ , can you believe that?" she'd laughed, a little bitterly.

                He'd been so desperate to soothe her that he'd fumbled to dry her tears with his cravat. The little marks of black kohl and rouge make-up had clung to the silk until well after she'd finally succumbed to the joy of the evening, well after she laughed and danced across the ballroom with him. It had been the beginning of a long sadness, but she'd been happy, too.

                She had loved her life, and him, and their quickly growing family.

                She _has_ to be alive again, but Chrom doesn't see any signs of that yet. Just that she was.

                "Father," Morgan says, concerned. "Are you okay?"

                "I just don't think it's right to look before she does," Chrom says, voice thick.

                "Father, you're crying," Morgan says, a little alarmed. He turns fully to his father then, and Chrom doesn't know what to say.

                Morgan hugs him around the middle, and Chrom braces a hand on Morgan's shoulder — against his wife's old coat, the one they'd found her in. Chrom takes a deep breath.

                "It's going to be okay, father," Morgan says.

                "I know," he says. "I know."

                If she's alive again, then everything will be alright again.

                It's frightening to hope, but Chrom's always been bold, anyway.

 

* * *

 

                With Lucina tucked into her grandmother's bed and Morgan napping at her side, Chrom ventures back outside, to where the summer sun can bake his scalp and hopefully cook his brain to the point where he can't think anymore. Lon'qu is coming out of the long grasses, stepping high and careful. Chrom thinks of a myriad of things that could make this day worse: wild animals hiding in the underbrush seems on par with total calamity.

                Lon'qu flags him down with a mere look, and Chrom gives him a look in return. _What now?_

                "There's a grave out back," Lon'qu says.

                Chrom pauses.

                "Really," he says. He shouldn't be surprised. "Whose?"

                "There's no name," Lon'qu says. "But I'm going to assume it's the mother."

                Chrom couldn't disagree, not on any logical level — after all, it's unlikely that anyone committed to living in the middle of nowhere would spend a lifetime setting up house and then leave all one's personal effects behind. If she were any closer to society, she'd probably know her daughter is not only an amnesiac, but marrying the Crown Prince of Ylisse.

                But he supposes he didn't want another death to mourn, either, and he's sure she'd be a woman deserving of mourning.

                "Maybe Ada left this place because her mother died," he says. "No sense in staying out here alone."

                "Seems obvious," Lon'qu says. "Someone had to be here to bury her, too."

                Chrom nods.

                "Did you want to see it?" Lonqu says.

                "No," Chrom says. "I'll see it later or something."

                Lonqu nods.

                "I'm off to hunt some dinner before the rain comes in," he says. "Unless you want to come?"

                He feels tempted, but Chrom shakes his head.

                "I should stay with Lucina," Chrom says. "Besides, if I go out now, I'll probably fall asleep mid-draw."

                Lon'qu nods, and Chrom appreciates it, in an odd way –– he and Lon'qu have struggled to become close in a way that Lissa would like, but Chrom doesn't doubt Lon'qu's consideration for an instant.

                But now that he's outside, Chrom isn't really sure where he intended to go, aside from where he doesn't have to look at all the tchotckes on the walls or the cupboards full of dishes and personal things, or listen to Lucina breathing shallowly from the other room. There's nothing beyond them for miles save the same grasses and trees and small bodies of water he'd trekked through for days, so that leaves him with the porch.

                There's a porch swing just next to the door, and Chrom thinks, sure, he'll take a nap on a porch swing. He's never sat on one in his life, largely because royalty generally does not step foot in quaint little cottages that would have one, but life is full of funny new experiences.

                Chrom sits on it gingerly and listens to every little creak, prepared to get back up the second it shows signs of falling down on his stupid head, but to his great fortune it bears his weight without falling. The rope protests but holds. The weatherbeaten cushions are a little lumpy –– Chrom doesn't want to think about what stuffs them or the mattresses inside –– but they're survivable.

                He watches Lon'qu vanish from sight, bow shouldered. Maybe he should have gone.

                Chrom enjoys a precious five minutes in peace, listening to the summer winds and the rustle of the trees and the slow, steady creak of the swing moving back and forth. The soles of his boots drag gently against the old wood below him. He feels maybe twice his age, and he imagines this past week has given him his first grey hairs.

                Sumia opens the front door, wiping off her hands with a dish towel. She looks at him and then the horizon and then him again, soft and concerned. He feels the exhaustion settle over him like a heavy blanket.

                "Do you need anything, Captain?" she asks. "I could get you something to eat, cut you up an apple or something? It should tide you over until Lon'qu is back with some game…"

                "No, no," Chrom says. "I'm fine. How's Lucina?"

                "Feverish," Sumia admits. "But that's not unusual."

                "Oh," Chrom says. "I should sit with her."

                "Why don't you lay down for a bit instead?" Sumia suggests. "I'll keep an eye on her."

                He's reluctant to be so vulnerable in front of anyone right now, especially after getting upset over a _door_ and _everything else_ that has happened, but he feels the weight on his eyelids.

                "Here," she says, and he is not surprised at all when she puts her hands on his shoulders and firmly pushes him over.

                "Sumia––"

                Before he can resist, Sumia gently but firmly holds him down by the head.

                "Honestly, Captain," she says, chiding like a mother. She shifts to crouch in front of him, so that they're eye-level and she isn't leaning above him. "If you can't keep your head up, then you have to let other people take care of you."

                "I know," he says, sighing and sinking into the probably bug-filled cushion. It smells musty this close, but he's too tired to retaliate. "But I don't _want_ anyone to take care of me."

                Sumia laughs.

                "Silly," she says. "It's just for a little while, until Ada's back, right?"

                Just until she's back.

                Chrom mulls on that and says nothing. Sumia shifts to sit properly, and she looks out into the distance with him.

                "I hope she's alright," Sumia says, finally. "Her health was always so fickle on campaigns!"

                Chrom isn't sure what to say to that. He's still working on the idea that she's alive at all, let alone alright, and he won't believe it entirely until she's standing in front of him as proof. Being in this house is surreal, and he supposes that's natural, given the circumstances. Little abandoned cottages have never been part of his life, and somehow he never imagined they ever would be.

                But is Ada alright?

                That's a troubling thought.

                "If Frederick is with her, he'll be sure of it," Chrom says. They have a funny relationship, but they are protective of each other regardless. "I'd be more worried if it was just Owain and Cynthia, but Frederick knows how to deal with her blackouts."

                Frederick has dealt with that more than anyone, really. Frederick has always been the one to scoop her up and carry her to the med tent. In fact, Chrom thinks he has probably _never_ personally caught Ada when she's collapsed. He's never been fast enough, or at the right place at the right time. He's walked in on her collapsed more than anyone, maybe, but Frederick is usually the one perceptive to those things.

                "Maybe it isn't so bad now, after everything," Sumia says. "Do you think?"

                "I don't know," Chrom says. His eyelids feel heavy.

                He doesn't know anything.

                "Well, I'm sure she's being well taken care of," Sumia says, voice floating away from him. "And when she gets here, we'll take good care of her, too."

                Chrom nods, and then he's gone to the world until Sumia wakes him up again to usher him inside from the rain.

 

* * *

 

                Lon'qu returns with a couple rabbits by sundown, soaking wet, and he sets up on the balcony to prepare them for cooking.

                "Why don't you just do it on the kitchen table?" Chrom asks.

                "Because your mother-in-law is my extended family and I'm not going to make a mess of her kitchen," Lon'qu says, dully, without even looking up from the rabbit he is delimbing with a hunting knife. Chrom pauses to figure out the line of relation there, and then, for what feels like the first time in an eternity, he laughs at something stupid.

                "I didn't even think of that," Chrom says, laughing even as he watches Lon'qu peel the rabbit's skin off like a sock off of a foot.

                "Whoa," Morgan says, somewhere under Chrom's arm. "Hey, Uncle, can I try on the other one?"

                "I don't see why not," Lon'qu says.

                "Be careful with that knife," Chrom says. "And what is with you and animals?"

                "I dunno, I think it's neat," Morgan says, pushing his way through the doorway under Chrom's arm. He drops to his knees at Lon'qu's side. "Noire says…"

                And then he prattles on about preserving bones or something like that, and Chrom lets his mind drift away, leaving Lon'qu to entertain. Chrom fixes his eyes on the horizon again –– it's lost to him now, the rain heavy enough that the hills are obscured by the mist. When lightning strikes, he can see their outline for an instant. The dark shapes of the trees get his hopes up every time, imagining they could be people on the precipice, but they never move.

                "Don't nick the liver," Lon'qu says.

                "I won't!"

                Chrom folds his arms and leans against the doorway. He hears Sumia saying something to Lucina deeper in the house, but he doesn't hear what –– he turns his head for a moment to listen, but he doesn't hear anything.

                Lightning strikes again.

                The rain is so heavy it runs off the roof in great streams, dribbling down to the grass. Little bits splash back onto the patio with the wind. Chrom hopes, idly, that it kills the humidity so that they aren't sweating into their bedrolls tonight.

                More lightning, this time longer, arcing across the entire sky.

                "That's funny," Lon'qu says, humorlessly. He's got his head up now.

                "What?" Morgan says. "Did I mess up?"

                "No; the sky's moving in one direction but the lightning just moved in another," Lon'qu remarks.

                Morgan looks up from the rabbit and towards the sky. "How can you tell?" he asks. "It all looks the same to me…"

                "I saw it, too," Chrom remarks, though he hadn't thought it odd at the time.

                "Just watch," Lon'qu says. "Maybe it'll happen again."

                The three of them watch for a few minutes in silence. The next strike ripples across the sky and falls where the rest had.

                "Probably using magic," Morgan says. He pauses, and then smiles up at Chrom. "I bet Mother could do that with the right spell."

                "I didn't even think controlling lightning was possible," Chrom asks.

                "I think it's her," Morgan says.

                Chrom dares not hope. Chrom wishes he could feel excited, but in truth he just feels torn between stress over Lucina's survival and stress over what he might feel if Ada arrives — or worse, what he might feel if she never shows up.

                When Morgan looks at him expectantly, he just looks away.

 

* * *

 

 

                By time they've eaten dinner, Lucina has started drifting in and out of lucidity. Despite having seemingly made some recovery, despite having seemed to be out of the woods, it doesn't last. Wounds have a way of surprising their bearers.

                Chrom feels lost. He doesn't know where he is, or why he's here, and there's no moving Lucina. They're stuck. They're cornered. Their small party had been a mistake; he can't go back to Ylisse because he won't leave Lucina. He could send Lon'qu and Morgan back to the castle, but he doesn't want his son out of his sight, either. He could send Lon'qu alone, but what if he never made it?

                He's not a god damned tactician. He doesn't know how to play this. He has no clever answers, no cunning plan.

                He has to wait. Fate is coming at him and this time there's nothing he can do.

                He stands in Lucina's doorway with his arms folded, waiting.

                "I don't know what to do," Sumia murmurs to Lon'qu, when she thinks Chrom can't hear. "I don't know if she can survive this, let alone make it home."

                Lon'qu takes Sumia outside and Chrom doesn't hear any more of it, but he feels a sudden blistering anger at Ada.

_If Lucina dies out here, then it'll be because of her stupid lie._

                But the night stretches on.

                Sumia takes the sofa, and Lon'qu takes the rug in front of the hearth, leaving Chrom and his children to the bedroom that must have belonged to Ada's mother. Morgan sleeps next to his dying sister, a mess of worries and quiet sniffles and fierce, enduring hope. Chrom just sits up in an armchair. Ada's mother's armchair. His children's grandmother. His _mother-in-law_.

                Chrom has scarcely had a mother of his own, let alone a mother-in-law.

                And she's buried here. He wonders if it had been her choice –– certainly it was a choice to live out here, in a place this far from the world, but Ada chose to bury her here instead of in Plegia proper. And, perhaps most uncomfortably, he wonders if he will bury her granddaughter here, too.

                He pushes down that bad thought.

                He can't think about that.

                He's less than fifty feet from his mother-in-law's grave now. He thinks, briefly, that he might like to see it for a moment, which is a thought he's never had about his own parents, despite having passed their columbarium two or three times a day for most of his life.

                Both children are sleeping. Chrom checks on Lucina and then moves to the window to peer out. It's pitch black and still raining hard. He doesn't particularly want to go out in the rain, but maybe he needs to. Does her spirit haunts the place? Do her old bones in the garden know from beyond that he's here with her grandchildren?

                He's just never felt a presence like this one before.

                Chrom crosses the little house on the balls of his feet to be gentle on the old floorboards. Sumia is asleep, her head under a pillow that Chrom is sure must be musty from age. Lon'qu is a dark shape on the floor, stretched out under a thin blanket. When he steps over Lon'qu, however, he almost trips –– Lon'qu has grabbed him –– but Lon'qu lets him go again almost immediately.

                "Gods," Chrom hisses, under his breath. "What was that for?"

                "It was a reflex," Lon'qu murmurs, sitting up. Chrom feels bad suddenly –– he supposes they startled each other equally in this spooky old house. "Where are you going?"

                "For a walk," Chrom says. "Don't worry about it, I don't need company."

                Lon'qu sighs. "In this rain?" he says.

                "I won't be long," Chrom says.

                "Very well," Lon'qu says.

                "Thanks," Chrom replies. He pauses. "Uh… where's the grave?"

                Lon'qu pauses, too.

                "Behind the house," he says. "There's a little rock outcropping about fifty paces from the back wall. It's not much to look at."

                "Thanks," Chrom repeats.

                And out he goes into the pouring rain.

 

* * *

 

                His lantern's light doesn't go very far. Chrom squints and makes his way through the long grass, which soaks his boots on contact. The rain pings off the top of his lantern insistently, and it's heavy enough that he could turn back, but he doesn't.

                It takes him a few minutes, as the stones inlaid in the narrow path are slick with rain and weeds, but he finds the headstone on the little outcropping of rocks. The headstone isn't really even a headstone –– it's just a large rock. Chrom only picks it out as the headstone because the grass around it hasn't grown back well, and upon closer inspection, someone's used magic to engrave the Eyes of Plegia. It unsettles him, but it makes sense. Whoever this woman was, she'd presumably left because of Validar and his plan to awaken Grima –– it didn't make her any less Plegian.

                He imagines Ada hauling her mother's body up the same stones and burying her. She'd been younger, then. Maybe she'd had shorter hair, or less of a full figure; he can picture it. Maybe she'd cried, all alone.

                Was that why she headed to Ylisse? Did she give up this lonely house then?

                The thought strengthens him for some reason, but it doesn't answer why she'd come back here.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he thinks. _I'll find out when she gets here._

 _If_  she gets here.

                Chrom feels cold water run down the back of his collar as his hair slowly plasters to his skull.

                His mother-in-law's body is mere paces from his boots, somewhere under the dirt. He thinks he should say something.

                "Uh," he says. "Hello."

                The rain keeps on pouring, and Chrom's lantern flickers. He brushes some water off the top. There's no response, but then again, why would there be? It's a grave.

                Chrom plucks up his courage.

                "So I'm waiting here for your daughter," he says. "My wife, by the way. I'm sorry that this is how we meet, and how you find out, but your daughter married me… three years ago? Four? Gods, I don't remember. I'm sorry."

                That probably didn't come out right.

                He pauses.

                "My sister said something to me a couple months ago, about how she's practicing agreeing with Cynthia before agreeing with Owain, because she wants to make Cynthia feel welcome in the family… and Owain can handle being ribbed a little. She said all parents do that."

                He snorts.

                "That sounds… gods, that sounds so stupid. I'm sorry," he says. "And what would Lissa know? It's not like we had parents or even aunts or uncles to give us that kind of advice. But I guess I get it. If they were arguing and she always took Owain's side right away, it would be pretty alienating."

                Chrom can't help it. He laughs.

                "I suppose I just want you on my side, here. I'm your son-in-law. Or I would be, if you were alive. And I think I need you to back me up here because… because I'm a little angry with her."

                The rain feels colder, but that's because there's no response, no conversation to rejoin with. It's just him and the rain and a grave, and the sad flicker of his lantern. Chrom feels his heart in his throat.

                "As the Exalt, and as a Prince of Ylisse, and even just as a man who cares about this world, I'm profoundly grateful for what she did, and how much it took… I don't know if I could leave her or the kids. Uh, you have grandkids. Three of them. Is that –– sorry, I guess I should explain this better, but I was raised to give speeches to _armies,_ and I'm really only good at war, not… I don't know how to explain this to you."

                Her. A grave.

                "Is it selfish? I'm not just the Exalt, I'm her husband, and the father of her children, and she's my best friend… and I'm angry that she decided to do it, even after we discussed it, even after she promised me she wouldn't. I can put on a brave face for our children and the court, and rule best I can, but I can't shake the feeling of betrayal."

                He feels a long breath leave his lungs.

                "And I worry that it makes me like my own father. I guess he would be your brother-in-law. He hated my mother in the end, or at least I think he did — he resented something about her, and maybe resented his kids, too. Maybe he loved her at the same time, because they were always together. I don't know how to explain it, I don't know what she did to earn his ire, not when I was so young, but I think about Ada, and I love her so much, and it scares me to be angry with her, even just a little bit."

                He's not even sure why he's saying these things, but they're _cathartic_ , and it's possibly the most catharsis he's had in four hundred and something days.

                "I'm sorry. I'm so tired. I can't sleep, thinking that I might see her again, and our daughter is probably dying, and I'm afraid there's a reason Ada went to you, someone she doesn't even remember, instead of me. And she couldn't have known Lucina would take off, but…"

_But?_

                "I wanted to be the first person she'd run to. I wanted to ride out to Origin Peak or the Mila Tree or her field or _wherever_ she woke up, and be the first to see her. We always joked so much about her life beginning with me, I completely forgot she might have had a life without me, and I just…"

                He pauses.

                "Is it selfish to have wanted that for myself? Why wasn't it me?"

                He feels a shiver run down his back, deep and dark and like a knuckle in his spine. He's not staring at a grave anymore — he's in complete darkness. For a second he thinks his lantern has gone out, but _all_ light is gone, and the grass under his feet is just nothingness.

                And then, as if he'd never been alone out here, he's looking into the eyes of a ghost.

                She's got sad eyes and long bright hair, just like Ada, but her face is broader, and her nose shorter. She has white robes under a mantle of purple and gold, the Plegian eyes cascading down her shoulders. She looks like she's made of pearled light all-over. And she says to him, quietly:

                "I don't know much about selfishness."

                Chrom takes a deep breath. He was _heard._

                "No, I don't imagine you do," he says. "You left all society behind instead of letting your daughter be raised by Validar. You must have had to forsake everything for that."

                "His name was never spoken in our household," she says. "Just as I am sure that it was not spoken in yours."

                "For the most part, it wasn't," Chrom agrees. "Did _she_ know, though?"

                The ghost says nothing. Chrom isn't sure what to make of that.

                "I don't even know your name," Chrom admits.

                "Ada," the ghost says.

                Chrom pauses. But that's––

                "Right. Your daughter is Robin, you're Ada. My apologies," Chrom says. "Ada. I'm Chrom."

                "Chrom," she repeats. "Your father waged war on Plegia. He was a tyrant. He massacred the people. And you… you are his son."

                Chrom hesitates. _His_ father? He hadn't expected to talk about his father, but––

                "I'm afraid of being like him," he says. "You barely know me, but please… I don't want to be like him. I don't want to hate your daughter. I don't want to destroy Plegia. I just want her back."

                She looks down at him with something like pity –– or at least he hopes it is pity. Her eyes are pearlescent, indistinct. He thinks he could touch her, if he reached for her, but he doesn't move. His hands are frozen at his sides.

                He's never spoken to a ghost before, much less the ghost of his mother-in-law.

                "I know your heart, Chrom," she says. "Worry not."

                "Thank the gods," he says, without thinking. Well, at least his mother-in-law will know what a moron her daughter married. He pauses, and then dares to hope: "Is she really back? Do you know?"

                "The dead don't know anything," she says. "We don't miss, we don't long. I'm here only for a moment, and then I will slip back to nothingness."

                That pulls a chuckle from him.

                "I guess that's the problem with talking to ghosts," he says.

                "Ghosts? There's no such thing as ghosts," she says, and in that moment Chrom only hears Ada's voice: endearingly bossy, even in the face of misstep. "I am an echo, a vision from mother to child."

                "What?" Chrom says, almost laughing.

                Then she's _Naga_ , so abruptly that Chrom has to wonder if she'd ever looked like anything else at all. She smiles at him, her glassy eyes shining and her silks fanning about her on a wind he doesn't feel.

                Chrom feels a swell of disappointment, but also relief.

                "Well," he says. "I should have seen that one coming."

                "There are only dragon-gods," she says, in a tone that Chrom doesn't find too unlike Tiki's. No wonder she's so cheeky. "I thought I'd find you in the chapel."

                "Sorry about that," he says. He feels like he needs an excuse, a justification for this. "I just haven't felt very… pious."

                "You have not had much reason to be," she says, smoothly. "Even for an Exalt."

                "Would it have changed anything?" Chrom says. "I feel like I did everything, in those first few weeks, but you never spoke to me, or appeared to me. So I just… gave up."

                Naga is silent for a moment, and Chrom just waits under her green glow.

                He decides he doesn't have to justify himself any more than that. He sets his jaw and looks up at her, courage gathered.

                "Between my wife and my daughter's efforts, Grima has been sealed away forever," he says. "My wife sacrificed herself and you said I had to have faith in her, but so far it hasn't paid off, because I don't have her and my daughter is dying."

                Naga's eyes soften.

                "You've known much tragedy," she says.

                "And I'm at least partially responsible, aren't I?" Chrom says.

                She reaches for him, then, laying her hands on his cheeks. His skin feels warmed, even if he doesn't feel her hands at all. He breathes in deeply. He's not sure what he can do, but then again, what could he do? He's never been so helpless.

                "Child," she says, softly. "Be _forgiving_ , most of all of yourself."

                Her hands move to close around his, and then she's gone.

                Chrom feels the full weight of the rain return, shocking and cold despite the humid summer air. The world of his vision melts away, leaving him standing in the grass again. He feels shaken, but fortified. He turns to look towards the house and spies Lon'qu looking up the hill from a respectful distance.

                Chrom doesn't need to glance back to be sure that Naga has gone as abruptly as she arrived. He's heard all he needs.

                "Did you see her?" he says.

                "Yes," Lon'qu says. "Are we relying on the gods to work things out?"

                Chrom moves down the hill, faster and more sure of foot, the lantern swinging at his side. When he reaches Lon'qu he extends his hand.

                "What's this?" Lon'qu says.

                Chrom opens his palm to reveal a small vial with a shining green crystal within.

                Lon'qu gives a low rumble, the closest thing to approval Chrom has ever heard.

                "A gift from Naga," Chrom says. "Why are you out here?

                "Lucina," Lon'qu says, quietly.

 

* * *

 

 

 

                Sumia is missing from the couch when they get back in; the lamps are lit in the open bedroom, and Chrom and Lon'qu drip water through the house as they head that way. Sumia is sitting with Lucina now, her long hair bundled at the nape of her neck and a worried expression fixed on her face as she inspects Lucina's wounds. Lucina is ghostly pale. Morgan is sitting at the window, chewing on his lower lip.

                "Is she getting worse?" Chrom asks.

                "Captain," Sumia says, miserably. "I'm so sorry, but unless some sort of miracle happens…"

                Chrom just wordlessly extends his closed hand to her, and she hesitantly lifts her hand to take the proffered gift. Sumia's eyes widen as she tilts the vial, and the tiny green crystal inside rolls across the glass bottom and clinks softly against the wall. She closes the vial tight in her fist and closes her eyes for a brief moment, as if in prayer.

                "Naga's tear," Sumia says, in awe.

                "Our miracle," Chrom says, taking a seat at Lucina's bedside. They aren't out of the woods, of course –– they never are, it seems –– but his heart is pounding a little less with the knowledge that in a few moments, they'll at least see a treeline.

                Sumia passes the bottle back to him.

                "I'm afraid I'll fumble it and drop it," she admits.

                Chrom just nods.

                Sumia peels back the yellowed sheet to expose Lucina's dressings, and then carefully frees them from the wound. Chrom feels himself pale as the layers come away stark red, and then blackened from pooling. The skin around the wound looks sickly yellow.

                No sense in delaying a second longer.

                He tips the bottle, dropping the little tear into Lucina's wound. There's a little flicker of green light before it vanishes, swallowed up in his daughter's exposed flesh.

                Lucina takes a deep, hollow breath, her toes curling and her jaw quivering, and in an instant Chrom fears that tension, feels the worst of her pain. He wraps his fingers around hers, but hers are limp and lifeless.

                But then she exhales, long and slow, and her fingers twitch under his. The wound starts healing, flesh coming back together with invisible bonds.

                "Thank the gods," Chrom murmurs in relief.

                Her eyes start to flutter open. For a moment she looks at her father, and Chrom watches her, but he feels instantly calmed. The mark in her eye seems greener for an instant, but then it is blue again. Lucina smiles a little, maybe reflexively, and then closes her eyes again.

                Everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief.

                "She'll need to sleep," Sumia whispers, gently stroking Lucina's bangs back. "Where did that come from?"

                "Lon'qu can tell you," Chrom says, glancing at Lon'qu, who nods curtly.

                "I'll leave you with your children, then," Sumia says, with a smile, and one last pet of Lucina's head. As she stands, she reaches to pet Chrom, too, brushing his hair back. "Things are going to be okay, Captain."

                "I know," he says. "Thank you, Sumia."

                She smiles and takes her leave, taking Lon'qu with her from the doorway.

                For a moment, Chrom waits, and then he shucks off his wet cape and boots to sit next to Lucina. He glances at Morgan, who is still looking rather uncomfortable, so he beckons. Morgan wordlessly gets up from the window and climbs into bed, too. It's a tight fit for a man, his grown daughter _and_ his almost-grown son, but they manage without crowding Lucina.

                "I saw Naga," Morgan says. "From the window."

                He snuggles up a little, which surprises Chrom. Morgan has snuck into his bed every other night, sure, but Morgan was always far more affectionate with his mother. Chrom understands why, but now, on the cusp of Ada's return, Chrom wishes he might have been this close to his little boy sooner. They'd certainly had the time.

                "Gods just pop up when you least expect them, hmm?" Chrom hums.

                "Yeah," Morgan says. "Did she say anything about Mother?"

                "Not much," Chrom says. "Do you still think she's coming here?"

                Morgan nods against Chrom's shoulder, firm and resolute.

                "And Lucina will get her strength back in no time," Morgan adds. "Just in time for Mother to get here."

                Chrom sure hopes so.

                Morgan falls quiet, so Chrom reaches to dim the lamp, turning the oil down until it is a small, orange glow. It's still some absurd hour in the morning, and the rain keeps beating down. There's thunder in the distance, and the flash of lightning occasionally flickers the room. Chrom idly runs his fingers along Morgan's scalp, ruffling his hair. Morgan is wide awake.

                Chrom's not sure how long they lay there in silence.

                "Dad?" Morgan asks. There's hesitation on his voice –– rather unusual, given how Morgan loves to ask questions.

                "Yes, Morgan?" Chrom replies, quietly.

                "What was grandmother like? Not Mother's mother, I mean –– your mother?"

                Chrom pauses. He's hardly ever been asked, but he feels notably unmoved by the question. If he's being honest, he scarcely thinks of her, just as he tries not to think of his father. His memories of them both are dim, anyway.

                "I was only four when she died," Chrom says, finally. "I was too little to remember much."

                But Chrom wonders on it, then. What does he remember? He feels he remembers at least once cozying up to her bosom, but it could just as easily be his imagination. Something he wants to remember, rather than anything real. His memories of his father are a little more vivid, but still malleable –– he remembers a lot of shouting, and he was struck once. He's not sure why, just that it must have happened. That's it.

                He remembers more of his parents' absence than themselves. His earliest memory that seems plausibly real and not imagined is around the same time, watching his room sail into the distance, and then falling down the stairs. And then there's another time, probably later, sitting on Frederick's lap, bawling his eyes out. He also remembers sitting in Frederick's arms because he couldn't see over the balcony otherwise, looking down at the crowds.

                Frederick features in a lot of his early memories, actually. He wonders if his mother might have held him instead if she hadn't been killed, but figures maybe not. Emmeryn was six years Chrom's senior, yet she'd never shared much in the way of personal memories of their mother.

                Morgan is quiet, a little disappointed, but then he says: "I'm afraid of everyone dying, and then I'll never know anything."

                Chrom feels a pang of hurt for his little boy, who has less than four years' memory of him, as well.

                "There's plenty about my parents in records, and there will be books someday," Chrom says, gently. "But it's maybe not the best place to learn about them as people."

                "Lucina told me _not_ to look in the books, once," Morgan says. He pauses. "I guess she knows more. But if people don't tell stories, and they die…"

                Chrom pauses.

                "I suppose so," Chrom says. "That's partially my fault. I never really asked many questions."

                "What happened to your parents?" Morgan asks, curiously.

                Chrom's heart jumps so fast he's sure that Morgan could feel it.

                "You mean how they died?" he clarifies.

                "Yeah," Morgan says. "Were they both in a war?"

                "No," Chrom says. "Well. The war factored in, certainly, but neither of them were on the front lines, or anything."

                "But what happened?"

                Chrom pauses again.

                "He killed her, then himself."

                "Oh," Morgan says.

                They're both quiet, then; Morgan doesn't ask _why_ , which Chrom is perfectly fine with. Chrom ruffles his hair again, moving slowly.

                "Do you think it runs in the family?" Morgan asks.

                "Hmm?"

                Morgan pauses, mulling over words. "Mother's father… grandfather, I guess. He tried to kill both you and Mother... and all of us. And Mother almost killed you. And… well, Lucina tried to kill Mother…"

                He trails off.

                "I know it sounds pretty terrible, Morgan," Chrom says. "But terrible things happen all the time in war, especially when you're always in the thick of it, like we are. But there's so much good, too, isn't there?"

                "Like what?"

                "Well, your grandmother raised your mother all the way out here in the middle of nowhere to protect her from harm, didn't she? And Emmeryn, she loved Lissa and I so much, and she sheltered us from so much sorrow and strife. She could have had me raised right in the middle of court, but she let me have a childhood."

                Morgan nods.

                "And you and Lucina came here to us, to be our children again –– you didn't live in sad times anymore."

                "And Mother," Morgan adds.

                "And your mother –– your mother gave up everything so that we could live in a world without Grima. And she's going to come back to us soon, Morgan, because that runs in the family, too," Chrom says. He feels fortified just saying it, like he believes it more himself. "In the end, we stick together through terrible things, and we come out with stronger bonds for it."

                Morgan nods again, a little more fervently.

                "Father?" he says.

                "Yes?"

                Morgan looks up at him, eyes bright even in the dark.

                "I'm glad you came after us," he says. "I think it'll be even better when Mother gets here."

                Chrom chuckles, low on his throat.

                "I'm glad I followed you, too," Chrom says.

                Morgan sighs. On Chrom's other side, Lucina stirs, just enough to wrap her fingers around her father's.

                All three sleep through the morning.

 

* * *

 

                Chrom wakes to Sumia gently pinching his feet. He opens his eyes groggily to see her smiling at him, playfully tweaking his big toes. Morgan is gone from his side, but he can hear laughter floating in through the window. Lucina it still dozing on his other side.

                "Are you going to sleep the day away?" she asks. "It's almost noon."

                Chrom snorts.

                "I feel like I could," he says. "You know how often Frederick lets me get away with sleeping late?"

                "Never, I'd imagine," Sumia says.

                "Right," he says. "So I'll enjoy this for at least a minute more."

                Sumia chuckles, and she releases his feet in favour of rounding the bed to Lucina's side. She gingerly lifts the remaining dressings and smiles. Chrom peers over –– nothing but new pink skin. Chrom feels that, for once, things are starting to go well.

                "If only Naga visited us every time something like this happened," Sumia says, warmly.

                "If only," Chrom agrees.

                "Well, I'm going to make lunch," she says. "We still have some rabbit, and biscuits, and Lon'qu and Morgan scrounged up some berries this morning. We'll have a little celebratory feast."

                Chrom nods, and Sumia just bustles off. (Chrom hears her trip somewhere down the hall, thumping off the wall, but her awkward laughter floats back to him right after, so he doesn't call.) He looks at Lucina. She stirs and her eyelids twitch.

                "Hey, Lucina," he says softly.

                She opens her eyes.

                "Lucina," Chrom repeats. Lucina's eyes focus and she looks at him quite clearly. He brushes her bangs from her eyes. "How are you feeling?"

                "Like I got run over by wild horses," she croaks, lifting her head. Chrom passes her a glass of water from the bedside table, and he helps her sit up a little to drink. The relief washes over him so much that he can't help but kiss the crown of her head.

                "I'll bet," he says.

                "Is everyone alright?" she asks. "Is Mother…?"

                "We're all fine," Chrom says. "She's not here."

                Lucina looks somewhat disappointed — Chrom's not sure he could feel disappointment in the wake of her survival, as that feels lucky enough. She sinks back into the pillows again, breathing a long, low sigh.

                "Will we stay here until she arrives?" she asks.

                Chrom pauses.

                "We're here until you're well enough to travel," he says. He can't help but smile a little, then. "If she gets here, then that's the best we could hope for, getting to bring both of you home."

                "She must be close. Will you send Sumia and Lon'qu out to look for her?" she asks. "Or you, you and Morgan could go too, I'd be fine here alone if it's swifter to find her–"

                "No, no," Chrom replies, firmly. "No one's leaving."

                Lucina nods, and she moves to sit up, so Chrom helps her. She doesn't need much help, though; stiffness aside, she seems relatively fine. She gets her feet on the floor but doesn't stand up quite yet. For a moment both are quiet.

                "You know I have about a thousand questions, right?" Chrom asks.

                "I know," Lucina says.

                "We were supposed to be done with this," Chrom says, pointedly. "We were supposed to be done with secrets and lies and… and strategy. We talked about that, didn't we? After your mother went."

                "I know," Lucina repeats. "But I thought, if I could see her again, and bring her back home, then it would really be over. We could all move on."

                "You know it's not that easy," Chrom says. "It's never that easy, and when your mother gets here, things are going to change again."

                Lucina doesn't reply.

                "Why didn't you tell me?" Chrom asks.

                Lucina closes her eyes; he knows she doesn't want to cry.

                "I don't know," she says. "There are so many reasons. There was never the right time."

                "Were you going to tell me eventually?"

                "Eventually," she agrees. "But Ylisse had to be stable. You had to be ready to see it, and before this, I thought that you were still hurting too much."

                Chrom just exhales slowly.

                "Are you okay?" she asks him. "Father?"

                Chrom isn't sure how to answer that. Lucina reaches for his hand and they sit there for a moment, and then Chrom says: "I'm fine. I still don't know what to think of all this… but I feel like everything is going to turn out alright."

                "You believe Mother's coming back?" Lucina asks.

                Chrom shakes his head.

                "I don't know, Lucina, but I hope so," he says. His closes his fingers around hers. "But whether she does or not, I know I'm ready to move on."

                It may not be the answer she wanted, but Lucina smiles. It's an odd smile, hesitant, but she says: "I'm happy for you. I think you deserve closure more than anything."

                Chrom nods, and he smiles too, because his daughter is alive, this house stands as testiment to his wife's life, and his family is strong and his friends are the most devoted a man could ask for.

                For once, Chrom feels his grief has come to an end.

 

* * *

 

                Chrom lets himself out of the house. The sun is just beginning to set, and he shades his eyes with his hand as he crosses the lawn towards where Sumia is with the horses.

                "How is everything, Captain?" she says, smiling.

                "Good," he says. He pauses. "Thanks for everything these past few days, Sumia. These past few weeks, even. You've really been here for me."

                "Oh, you don't have to thank me," she says, gracious as always.

                "No, I do," Chrom says. "And I'm sorry to have snapped at you before, and that I took you away from Lissa's side. You should be there with her, getting ready for the baby, but I'm glad you're here. Lucina owes you her life, and for that, I'll be forever grateful."  
  
                Sumia beams brighter than the sun.

                "Well, you're very welcome," she says. "We all have to take care of each other in the Shepherds. And like I've said before, if anything happened to Reiner… well, I don't think I would have handled it nearly as well as you have."

                Chrom chuckles, low and uncomfortable.

                "I don't think I've been handling it all that well, to be honest, but I'm glad I don't seem to be half as much of a failure as I feel I am."

                "Oh, Captain," Sumia says, sweetly.

                Her eyes drift beyond his shoulder and widen.

                "Captain," Sumia repeats.

                "What?" he asks, and then he turns to follow her gaze. He raises a hand again to shade his eyes, to block out the worst of the setting sun bleeding orange light all over the valley.

                 _Oh._

                Without even thinking, he starts moving in that direction. There are a couple figures on the hill, just dark silhouettes of people on foot and then horses behind them, and his breath catches in his throat as he moves towards them. He starts running, arms pumping at his sides and boots carrying him in long, driven strides.

                And then he _sees_ her.

                Even from this distance, he knows it's her in an instant. He sees her and he _knows_ it's her, and he feels his lungs fill in a way they haven't in four-hundred-something days. His heart swells.

                It's her. _It's her_. It's _Ada._

                She looks down the hill at him with round eyes, and Chrom can't tear his eyes off her for an instant. He barely even registers his nephew and Frederick and Cynthia following behind her. He forgets Sumia and Lon'qu and his children behind him.

                For that second, it is him and Ada, the only people in the universe.

                He finally lets the truth overwhelm him.

                She stops in her tracks, startled, a hand moving to her breast. "Chrom," she mouths, like a sigh of relief, and though he's too far to hear it, the shape of her lips is enough for him to know she's said his name.

                And then he runs to her, sprinting up the hillside. She starts making her way to him, too, slower but more sure on the rain-slick grass.

_Ada._

                He sees her expression lock up. He sees her knees start to go.

                He runs faster without even thinking, sprinting up the hill with his arms out. And this time, with the grace of the gods, he is fleet enough going up the hill that he catches her.

                Ada collapses in his arms, near boneless. Her eyes are half-lidded just long enough for her to look at him. _Really_ look at him. He feels a shiver down his spine, the baby hairs at the back of his neck standing on end.

                "Hey there," she says, scarcely above a whisper, and she _smiles_. "I should have known you'd find me."

                Chrom breathes in sharply through his nose, and he lowers them to the grass, where she lays across his lap.

                "I always do," he says, cradling her face close to his. " _Always_."

                Ada smiles and her eyes drift closed as she sags in his arms. Chrom just clasps her to his chest, and in that moment, he knows he is the luckiest man in the world.


	13. Fate Herself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Resurrection and a restart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please pardon formatting not being the same as previous chapters; I'll go back and edit it later, but right now I'm recovering from elbow surgery so I'm trying to go easy on myself haha. [posts fic anyway]

 

.

 

 

The earth is warm. Her skin feels sun-kissed, radiant. The world feels right.

Chrom gazes down at her. The way he looks at her, she's never felt so magnificent, especially waking from a fainting spell. Has he ever looked so soft, so sweet? Has she ever felt so loved before? His dark eyes are shining wetly, but there are no tears. _Good._ He's her confident, assured man, as always.

She reaches up to brush her fingertips against his cheek, smiling. He closes his fingers around hers, firm and strong. For a moment, they're both quiet, sharing a look that feels incomprehensible. He breaks out in a smile.

Ada thinks: _I'm home._

She says, like a breath of relief: "Chrom."

He just laughs, under his breath, disbelieving. She could kiss him, just kiss him absolutely breathless. She thumbs over his cheekbone, searching his delighted face. He pulls her palm to his mouth and kisses the naked skin there, and then turns it over to kiss where the mark had once been. When he sees it is gone, he kisses that spot again, and again, and then at _least_ once more.

"Aren't you going to say it?" she asks, even though his silence has never felt so natural. He leans his head to hers and breathes in deeply.

"You're _not_ on the ground," he says, laughing. She isn't, technically — she is, at least in part, draped in his lap. He clutches her in his arms so tightly. "So you just— you just nap here! There's no better place."

"That's the most _you_ thing I've ever heard," she tells him, and then he hauls her higher in his lap, like she couldn't possibly be close enough.

"Oh god!" Cynthia pipes up, laughing. "Just kiss!"

Both of them look at the girl, and Chrom goes a little red, but he smiles so wide that Ada thinks his cheeks might split. Ah, yes –– their little audience.

"I'll let you this once," Ada teases Chrom, but she barely gets it out before he does kiss her, quick but aching and tender. Still, she gets the impression he cares more about just _seeing_ her in that moment, and she completely understands.

"Later," he says. "When we're not _surrounded_ on all sides."

Cynthia snickers.

"That was an excellent catch, Uncle Chrom," Owain adds, delighted. "Fate has brought us all together most fortuitously; I don't think I'd've been fast enough to catch her, going downhill!"

Chrom laughs, long and low.

And then there's Frederick, hands folded behind his back, standing over them with a sigh on his face.

"What an entrance you've made," he says, exasperated. "On your feet, both of you, if you're feeling awake enough."

Frederick offers Ada a hand, and when she takes it he pulls her to her feet in one smooth motion. Chrom follows, not even waiting for his own hand. Ada straightens up only to wobble tremendously. Both Frederick and Chrom grab her at once, each by an arm, and Ada laughs.

"I'm _fine_ ," Ada says. She looks at Chrom again, because she can, and he lets her lean fully against him. Her heart is beating so fast. She looks down the hill; it is so steep she's sure one could crack their head open going down. "Good thing you caught me, or I would have fallen all the way to the bottom."

Chrom's smile grows a little tight suddenly, but his grip on her is just as tight, almost smothering. She doesn't mind at all. It's grounding.

"Let's just find a place for you to sit down," Chrom says.

"Yes, please," she says.

Chrom leads her down the hill to the house, which she looks at with a heady rush of nostalgia. Her house. Chrom winds his fingers around hers, and she feels his eyes on the side of her head but she takes in her house with such relief.

"It's real," Frederick says, and he sounds almost pleasantly surprised about it. 

_It's real._

This is, then, her _real_ self. She's sure of it.

She feels the tears well up, but she can't stop smiling. She holds Chrom's hand so tightly she thinks it would break if he wasn't so strong.

Cynthia and Owain race past them, careening down the hill and yelling. Ada watches Cynthia leap into her mother's arms, and she watches Lon'qu half heartedly try to dodge Owain but end up tackled anyway. When Ada and Chrom and Frederick catch up, Sumia rushes up the last bit of hill and throws her arms around Ada's neck, crying fat tears. A bubble of snot threatens to drip down her lip. Ada laughs, pulling her friend into a tight hug, Sumia's great clouds of curls in her face.

"Sumia! She just had a fall," Frederick scolds as Sumia peels herself off again, sniffling.

Ada just smiles at Lon'qu, who just waves frigidly, the relief on his face a funny juxtaposition with his clear anxiety that she might embrace him.

And then there's Morgan on the porch, eyes as big as saucers and undeniably giddy.

"Mother!" he shouts.

Morgan runs to her, and even if she feels lightheaded, she takes him into her arms like a child — he might be almost grown now, but he's still her baby, and oh gods, she holds him for what feels like the first time since he _was_ a baby, cradled against her chest, as she spirited him away from Ylisse— 

_No._

Ada braces herself mentally and presses her nose into her son's hair as he laughs. Suddenly, though, she feels weak in the knees again. If it weren't for Chrom supporting her, she'd surely fall again.

"Ada?" Frederick says, concerned, but she barely hears him.

"Lucina was right!" Morgan says. And then, with a sudden gasp, he says: " _I_ was right!"

"Yes, baby," Ada says. "You were right, and then some –– you both knew."

Morgan squeezes her so tightly, his face burried in her neck. Ada meets Chrom's eyes, and he's watching her with this _look_ on his face she can't quite place, and she's sure her own looks just the same. Morgan doesn't let go for a long few minutes.

"Just the four of you?" Ada says. She looks around briefly, counting –– Chrom, Morgan, Lon'qu, Sumia.

"Lucina is inside," Chrom adds, and Ada feels her heart swell. Gods, what did she do to deserve this kind of welcome in her own house, in the middle of nowhere?

"Wonderful," she says, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Let's go see her."

"But before you go in," Chrom says, quickly, his hand tightening on hers. "You should know... Lucina was injured getting here. She'll be okay but just... be careful."

Ada frowns, and just like that, her giddiness grinds to a halt.

"What happened?"

"A blade," Chrom says. He gestures at his side with his free hand.

"Is it serious?" Ada asks, but she feels an immediate sense of dread. Of course it is serious –– why else wouldn't Lucina be here to greet her?

"She's out of the woods," Chrom says.

"I want to see her," Ada replies, curtly, and Chrom just wordlessly gestures for her to follow him to the house.

Ada would have loved to walk into her mother's house with wonder and drink it all in, but that's just not how memory works. It's not a slow discovery, or an unexplored place, or even a wonder at all –– it's just there, a full and complete picture of the house. She moves through it without a second glance at the tchotckes or the nice dishes or the amateur paintings on the walls or anything. 

It's just how she left it, and so it is unremarkable.

Ada just walks to the bedrooms, and when she sees her own room closed, she turns her eyes to her mother's.

There's Lucina at the door already, hand braced against the doorway, her pretty face contorted in alarm and wonder and relief and all those things. She looks so much like Chrom, a smoother and more elegant change from how childish she had looked in some of––

_No._

"Mother," Lucina says, soft and quiet.

"Sweetheart," Ada says.

Confusion flickers on Lucina's face, but her relief wins out. She takes a few shaky steps to close the distance between them, and she falls into her mother's arms immediately. Ada feels Chrom brace her a little firmer, but he doesn't need to. She always has strength in her for her children.

"I can't believe you're all here," Ada says. She runs a hand over the back of Lucina's head, smoothing her long hair. "And you're injured! What happened?"

"It's a long story," Lucina says.

"I think it's time _everyone_ got caught up on how we came to be here," Frederick says. Ada doesn't look at him, but she feels his eyes boring holes into her head.

"Let me see my children and husband and house first," she says, smoothly. "There'll be plenty of time for stories later."

Frederick frowns, and he doesn't even try to disguise it. Ada just ignores him, her nose buried in Lucina's hair, but she feels Lucina stiffen just slightly. 

"I really must _insist_ ," Frederick says.

Chrom looks to Frederick with a frown. They all feel Frederick's sudden, uncharacteristic impatience, and that's plain enough on the faces around them.

"Frederick," Chrom says, sympathetic but firm. "She needs a minute."

Ada just closes her eyes. Too many people are looking at each other.

"She doesn't need a minute," Frederick says, pointed but as even-toned. "Ada, sit on the couch. We need to talk now."

Chrom replies in her stead, growing a little impatient: "What's gotten into you, Frederick? Can't it wait?"

_Bless him,_ Ada thinks, for always being her number one. For always being in her corner, no matter what. That kind of foolhardiness lets men like Chrom butt heads with gods: _you won't become Grima if I have anything to say about it_. But if there's a moment where he could regret being in her corner, this is it –– Frederick pauses, and Ada knows, with a sinking feeling, what is coming.

"No, sire," Frederick says. Ada feels his gaze right to her little toes. He orders: "Ada, you must tell him immediately."

Ada knows why he says it, but she still resents him the smallest bit for it. 

Chrom looks at her with mild curiosity, not a trace of suspicion, but his hand on hers slackens just the slightest bit. Ada isn't sure why, at first, but that alone makes her breath catch. She's done nothing to mislead him, she knows, but the memories that belong to Robin bubble up at his expression alone. 

Chrom's expression turns to concern.

He looks at her like he had just before she — no, _Robin_ — had killed him.

This is _exactly_ what she was afraid of.

"Not yet," she says, voice a little thick. She has to look away from him.

"Ada," Chrom says, and he cups her cheek in his hand, gently encouraging her to look to him, but she won't. "Ada, what's wrong?"

Ada looks to Frederick, who looks down at them like a reluctant executioner. "Give us a moment. Please."

"No, Ada," Frederick says. His voice is gentle but firm. "You must tell him now. We agreed, and you will not renege on it."

"Oh gods," Chrom says, and Ada can hear the fall in his voice. He doesn't know what they could possibly hide from him; why would he? His frustration bubbles up: "Frederick, just go. She clearly needs a minute.

"No," Frederick repeats.

There's a beat of silence between them all. Morgan and Lucina look alarmed. Cynthia and Owain look as if they hadn't heard, complete outsiders with no knowledge. For a moment Chrom stares down Frederick like he'd never expected Frederick to be _capable_ of this kind of refusal to obey. It feels mutinous. Frederick looks like he could break his jaw from tensing his teeth so hard, and Ada must take responsibility for it.

Ada feels dread that is not entirely her own — she wants this reunion to be joyous, satisfying, but the part of her that died with Chrom aches terribly. That he would defend her, delay the truth for her sake, even at his own cost—

"Chrom, I have my memories," Ada says, suddenly, it bursting from her like a bubble. Chrom stills. "But I—"

"Well, how else would you find this place?" Chrom says, too reasonably. He cuts her off. She hates it when he does that. He always wants to believe the best, even when he has to stop her from just saying the truth. "Of course you remember."

"It is," she agrees. "I have all those memories––"

"Ada," he cuts her off again. "Can we just have this _moment_ , please––"

"No–– listen. I have _too many_ memories."

Chrom frowns.

"I also have _Robin's_ memories," she says. "All of them, and... so many of them overlap. It's hard to make sense of them."

Chrom just searches her face. The others watching her with trepidation, her children looking confused, that's tolerable if not tense, but Chrom just stares at her.

"I remember _two_ lifetimes with you," Ada says, desperation creeping into her voice. "We met, you made me fall in love with you **,** I held Lucina as a baby, we had twins, we went to war — we died. I killed you but we died _together_. And in this lifetime, we're both here, we're alive…"

Chrom is silent.

"Please say something," she says. "Something, anything."

He takes her face in both of his hands.

"Ada," he says. "I don't care. What matters most is that you're back."

Ada just weeps.

 

* * *

 

His reception feels good, for a moment. There's a sense that it's okay, just alright. Everyone is quick to sweep it aside, set aside tension in favour of something lighthearted, something pleasing, and Ada finds it all too easy to do the same. Chrom winds his fingers around hers, Lucina and Morgan laughingly tell her the story about their daring run-away, and though she imagines his real-life fury, Ada laughs along at Chrom's lighthearted telling of his running after them. Frederick's story of getting the letter is stony, but Chrom smiles, thanks Frederick for looking out for him. Sumia laughs at Owain and Cynthia's adventure, praises their call to justice and their profound love for finding the happy ending, and Chrom gently jokes about making the court martial a court marital. Lon'qu cracks the barest of smiles not once, but _twice_. 

Chrom is relieved, and grateful to have her back, and there is an ease about him that Ada knows is genuine. Ada spends much of the afternoon with Chrom's arm around her shoulders or waist, and she lets him because he seems to _need_ it, even if they'd never do such a thing before. 

But he doesn't seem _happy._

Once the stories are told and they've all eaten lunch, Ada notes her closed bedroom door.

"We never opened it," Morgan says. "Dad wanted you to see it first."

"Oh," Ada says, and she laughs. "Well, it's not much..."

She opens the door without any fanfare, and it sticks a little so she has to push hard. Morgan is tight against her hip, as though he is a little boy (again?) and Ada loves it in an odd way.

Her room is truthfully none too special, but it is just how she left it, and that is special enough. The blanket on the narrow bed is still purple with embroidered flowers, the shelves are still stacked with cheap, dog-eared books and trinkets. There are little hand-carved wooden animals and coloured bottles full of dried leaves, dead flowers.

"Do you like it?" she asks Morgan.

"I thought there'd be more stuff in it," he admits.

"I never really had much stuff," Ada replies.

"Did you make those little things?" Morgan says, stepping up on the bedframe to reach the little animals. He takes one down –– a giraffe with divets cut out with a knife for spots.

"No," Ada says. "Those were from some merchants that passed through, or maybe the neighbours."

"There were other people out here?" Chrom remarks, from the doorway.

Ada smiles.

"Yes. We had neighbours, in a sense –– they lived about an hour's ride north, also Plegian refugees. There was a chain of them stretching across the countryside, mostly very far apart. People who had also left Plegia, to hide in the hills. It's remote, but fertile enough to live off the land out here."

"We didn't cross any other houses, or settlements," Chrom says. And then, a little cool: "Are you sure?"

Ada catches Morgan's eye. He's scowling at his father. Lucina is frowning from the corner. Ada chooses to shrug it off.

"You know, there must have been," she says. "My memories are all over the place, but I do remember them; my mother often fed them and laundered their clothes. I was young so I don't think I helped out much, but I remember being nervous with strangers but curious, so curious about them."

Chrom smiles, just a twitch around the corner of his mouth. She can't help but smile, too, because the memories are flooding. Good ones.

"Why would anyone live out here, away from everything?" Morgan asks.

"I suppose because that was around the time Validar rose to the position of high priest, but I was too young to know that at the time. Mother told me later, I think, when I was a teenager. A lot of people fled Plegia, just looking for a better life. A lot of Plegians were starving."

"Under Ylisse's sanctions," Lucina says, reluctantly. "And reparations."

"Yes," Ada says. "That was it."

Chrom's little smile vanishes.

"I don't think anyone lives out here now," Ada says, looking away from Chrom in favour of flipping through one of her old books, letting her mouth run as she goes over diary entries that don't seem entirely unfamiliar. "They were mostly gone as I got older, and I wanted to leave, too, because we had to go further and further to support ourselves. That's how I met you –– oh, _no_ , that's how I met you in the other timeline. I met you here because mother died, so I left –– I suppose Grima got me on the outskirts of Ylisse, that's how far I made it."

She looks at Chrom. He is frowning.

"Did you like it out here?" Lucina says. Ada watches her eyes move between her parents, and her tone is pacifying. Subject-changing. The mildest sort of uncomfortable.

"It was almost all I knew until I left!" Ada says. "Life wasn't bad out here, though. Lonely, quiet, but it was good. Food was plenty, and Mother was a good cook. We all traded, kept each other safe. Mother bought bolts of fabric once every few years and made all my clothes, different styles but all the same colours and patterns. We had birthdays –– I always got boots for my birthday. During holidays, Plegian holidays, mother cooked ginger snaps, and a nearby couple would visit with their children. Mother and the neighbour would talk for hours, I'd lay on the kitchen floor and listen. They were good women, really good women."

There's a beat of silence. Ada sets down the book. Chrom is staring off into the distance, and Lucina and Morgan are looking at her, both seeming equally unsure as to whether they'd like to hear more or not.

She has never felt so uncomfortable amongst her own family, despite having never felt so relieved to be with them. Not for the first time, she feels a distinct sort of justification in not having gone home first. Even now, all together, none of them feel ready –– even herself.

Chrom moves from the doorway, vanishing down the hall. Ada doesn't say anything; the words catch on her lips.

"Mother," Lucina says, softly.

"Yes?" 

There's a pause.

"Are you alright?" Lucina asks. "You seem very… overwhelmed."

Ada sighs, long and tired, and she puts her arms out. Lucina puts herself there reluctantly, but she sinks into the hug with abandon. Morgan hops to his feet and joins them, fitting himself under their arms.

"It's okay," she says. "It's okay."

But Ada thinks of another lifetime, of a moment in Ylisse castle, where she, a shell of a woman under another's control, had clutched her twins to her chest, the two of them nestled in a sling like two peas in a pod. She remembers her shell drawing a blade on Sir Frederick, who was the only thing left between her and her destiny. She remembers the look of terror on Lucina's young face, her fear of succumbing to her mother's compulsion.

Fortunately, she tells herself, that was another lifetime.

 

* * *

 

Night falls eventually with much said, but little else discussed. There's some carousing around the campfire, more stories of derring-do from Owain, good food from the combined efforts of Frederick and Sumia. There's a clipped discussion of sleeping arrangements –– the kids can cram together in one bed, the adults on the couch and floor, and Chrom and Ada in Robin's Room.

"It's getting late," Chrom says at some point after dusk, and Ada smiles before he even finishes: "We should turn in for the night."

"Yes," she says. "Let's."

Morgan laughs. "Yuck," he says, but he stifles himself with a hand when his father gives him a stern look. 

"Go, then," Frederick says to her. "Lord Chrom will be along in a moment."

There's an unspoken suggestion that they will be talking in private, but it lacks Frederick's usual embarassing touch: _I'm going to walk him to the latrines. I'm going to ensure he's brushed all of his teeth correctly._ Something. _Anything._

But Ada leaves the campfire alone, all the chatter hushed. She lets herself into the house and goes to her mother's room out of a strange, long-buried habit, and she grabs her mother's hairbrush and goes back to Robin's room. (Her room?) She takes her sweet time getting changed, and then she looses her hair from its ponytail to brush it out. The boar bristles are stiff on her scalp, but her hair falls around her face in soft waves by time she's done. She thinks of her mother, brushing her hair out for a hundred strokes each night, until her hair shone. Her mother had always been proud of her hair.

She turns when the door finally opens. Chrom is in the doorway, looking a bit like a dog sulking back in after a scolding. Ada smiles at him, and he smiles too, but it feels tense.

"Everything okay?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says. He pauses. "You?"

"I'm okay," she says. She sets down the brush. Chrom follows the gesture with his eyes but he doesn't move from the doorway.

Ada would give anything to hold him and not have this distance be reality, but she'd made this bed when she'd lied to him. She would lay in it without question.

"If you're not okay, you don't have to be," she says. "I'm not going to make you sleep here if you want space."

Chrom steps in and closes the door behind him. Ada knows every ear in the place just nervously perked to the sound.

"Ada," he says, firmly. "No offense, but after everything that's happened, I think I get to make the calls here. For once. And I'm sleeping here by choice, because I love you and I want to be close to you."

A little excessive on the control, but fair enough.

" _Do_ you still love me?"

He frowns.

"That's… a loaded question."

She doesn't know what to say to that. She knows it's loaded. She knows it wasn't fair, and she knew it before it came out of her mouth, even if she's not sure if she's saying it for herself or for _Robin_.

Either way, she's had some time to process the idea of consequence. She's had months, now, to ease into the idea of being alive again, and dwell on what that might entail. Chrom hasn't. He'd been ripped out of security before, and now she's done it to him again. Coming back was never going to restore the status quo –– it was just going to create a new one.

She knew that.

But now, Chrom reaches out to her, palm up. She places a hand in his, and he closes his fingers around hers.

"I love you," he says, seriously, and he lays his other hand overtop both. God, the earnestness on his face. Chrom has never been anything but earnest. "And I say that with no hesitation, no concerns, no questioning –– I _love_ you, Ada. Okay?"

"Okay," she repeats.

His expression grows a little more grave, even a little _disappointed_.

"But I'm still entitled to be mad at you."

"I know," she says. "I… expected that."

He pauses, and the silence between them is tense. His skin is warm on hers. She drops her gaze to their hands and waits for him to say something, anything, but he doesn't. He just presses a kiss to her forehead, right at the hairline, and they stand there in silence until he drops her hands and pulls away to strip for bed. He doesn't look at her.

Chrom doesn't know how to be mad at her when he's just gotten her back, she knows. 

She slips into bed and watches him unbutton. He shrugs out of his sleeves at once, and she glimpses the scar. The sight turns her stomach in a way she didn't entirely expect, and the memory of its creation bubbles up in a way that she swears she can smell the burnt flesh. Her mind fogs over as he strips to his smallclothes.

He climbs into bed beside her.

"Remember last time we shared a single bed?" he asks, against her neck.

Ada crawls back in her memories, following the paths to the one that must be true of her life. Chrom had hogged most of the space, his arm under her neck, and he'd joked with her about...

"Oh gods," she says. "You knocked me off the bed."

"You fell!"

"No way," she says, empathetic as all hell. This one, she is sure of. "You actually knocked me off. You pushed me right out. I know because I deliberately touched you with my cold feet, and you kicked me right out."

"Right," he says, like it's floated up in his memory too. "That's exactly right. Gods, I'd forgotten all about that…"

His hands are on her, palms broad and possessive. He doesn't just stroke her, he clutches at her, dragging her skin. It's warm, inviting, and she turns in his arms. He doesn't feel mad at her, not like this. Ada catches his eye and smiles, but Chrom seems frozen up, grasping for her even as she slides just out of reach of his hands. His smile is tense. She pauses.

"Chrom?" Ada whispers.

Chrom shakes his head, wiping his eyes with some impatience and keeping that smile on.

"Sorry," he says. "It's just... It's been a long time."

Ada runs her hand up and down his abdomen, gently, and she feels that time in the way he leans into her touch, the way his skin goosebumps under her fingertips. She settles her palm against the puckered white center of his old lightning wound, where she had once killed him, and once nearly been his death all over again. Chrom shivers, almost involuntarily, and he's breathing hard.

"It's okay," she says. "Too much, too fast?"

"No, it's great," he says, and then he laughs: "To be honest, I'm, uh... definitely going to disappoint you tonight."

Ada laughs, too. 

"Yeah... I think I'm in the same boat. Do you want to just...?"

"Yeah," he agrees. "Let's just... be together."

So she stretches out along the length of his body, right into the crook of his arm, and he wraps his arm around her and pulls her close. He buries his face against her hair and exhales in relief, warm on her scalp.

"I doubt I'll sleep," he murmurs. "I'm just going to savor this."

Ada runs her hand up to his chest, away from that damnable scar. 

 

* * *

 

Ada finds herself still lying awake some hours later. Chrom is awake too, and she knows that without even having to look. Their bonds run deep like that, right to the marrow. 

Though her old bed is narrow and has them pressed together, it seems like there is a gulf between them is so oppressive she can’t even close her eyes, let alone sleep. She stares at the ceiling, she shifts and tries to get comfortable. Away from the bustle of people and the wonder of being reunited, her mind wanders all sorts of terrible places. 

After all, she killed a part of herself, up on that mount, even if it was a part she wanted to excise, wanted to destroy for all the right reasons, for the sake of all the people she held dear. She hadn't thought she’d be around to deal with the consequences, but now that she is, it's odd that they _haven't_ talked about it.

When would they talk about it?

If she closes her eyes and thinks, she can imagine what _he's_ thinking.

“Chrom?” she murmurs.

There’s a long pause, and he says: “I’m awake.”

“I can’t sleep,” she says, almost relieved to be heard.

“I can’t either,” Chrom says, and he rolls over just enough to look at her. He’s older these days – they both are – but he still has a boyish look about him when he looks at her, eager and loyal and loving. It’s not quite in his voice, though. His voice is tired.

Ada turns to her side, budging closer to him, and she peers at him through the darkness in hopes that he’ll say something more.

“Hey,” she asks. “I know this is all lousy, but are we going to be okay?”

She knows they will be, but she's just not sure how he feels. Maybe it'd be better to pretend it's all okay for now, just to ease into each others' space again. Maybe the gulf is necessary for a time.

“We’ll be okay,” he says.

There's another moment of quiet. Ada shifts up on her elbow, peering down at him in the darkness, and Chrom watches her in turn. The loving look fades from his eyes in favour of something a little more solemn, a little more uncomfortable. She reaches to touch him, to run a hand down his arm, and he doesn't move.

"I missed you so much," Chrom says. He touches her too, then, a hand over hers. His voice swells with something like shame. "Gods… I just want to have you back, I don't want to argue, or deal with this."

"I figured," she says. "But we'll have to some time."

Quiet. From somewhere in the house, on the other side of the door, Ada hears someone stirring, the slow creak of floorboards as they patrol across the floor. Chrom sighs, almost defeated.

"The last battle," he says. "You remember it?"

"I do."

He sits up, so far forward his back curves, and Ada sits up, too.

"Then why didn't you let me, like we agreed?"

Ada pauses.

"Because I didn't think it was going to work," she says. 

"Why not?" he says. "We talked about it for weeks, I thought–– I thought I had you convinced that it was the better strategy."

"Because you wouldn't have gone through with it and killed me. You wouldn't have put me down," Ada says, soft and serious. He knows it's true –– maybe not _literally_ , because she knows he very well _could_ have, but they both know the selfishness of it would have killed him in turn, especially if her and Grima's fates were bound in the opposite direction, too. She could have died when Grima was killed, anyway, couldn't she?

After all, his father killed his mother, and that man had hung onto her and hung onto her until he couldn't live with it, either. Ada knows that.

"Would you have killed me if the situation was reversed?" Chrom says, lifting his voice with just enough of a challenge.

"That wasn't the situation."

"Well, neither was me killing you. It was me killing Grima."

Ada breathes deep and lays a hand over her heart.

" _I_ was Grima, Grima was _me_ , Chrom. And we don't know what would have happened either way. It was the least I could do, make it a choice rather than leaving it up to fate."

Standing in front of Robin hadn't been like standing in front of a mirror. It couldn't possibly be –– the slight natural asymmetry to any face made Robin seem distorted to her, different from Ada's reflection. Ada had never seen own face so clearly, but in some uncanny way she had known it was hers immediately. The only difference had been that her doppelgänger possessed no irises, just cavernous black pupils that enveloped most of her eyes. 

Grima and Robin, one and the same.

"That wasn't _you_ ," Chrom says, emphatically.

"It was. Chrom, it was me," she says. "I _remember_. I know what I was, now more than ever... and it hurts just to _think_ of you trying to do it."

He can't argue with that. It is true, in some sense. It was her body. Her face. Her voice. Or, at least, what used to be her: transmogrified into a puppet of flesh, bleeding black and skin splitting forextra serpentineeyes. Those parts of Robin's memories are dead and gone, but it ends up just the same. Ada's _seen_ her flesh used as a puppet for evil.

"I respect that it's hard," Chrom says, "but would you be able to kill me if the situation was reversed?"

"Not by choice," she says, finally. She's killed him before, flashed lightning through his gut, screamed over his dead body. She'd been _forced_ to, then. "In my right mind –– I think we both know the answer to that. But that's not the question. The real question for a reverse situation is whether you would kill _yourself_ because I wouldn't be able to."

Chrom pauses, long and heavy.

"Well?" she asks.

"I would," he says, finally.

She lets out a deep breath, and she leans her forehead against his. He closes his eyes, lashes dark and wet. 

"Then we've got to move past this, baby," Ada says. "I did what we needed. You would do what we needed if it was the other way around. And most importantly, that's over now –– if I've broken your trust forever, then I understand, and..."

Chrom has tears running down his face. Ada realizes she is crying too when a few hot tears roll right to her chin. Chrom reaches and brushes them away with his thumbs before they can drip onto her bare breasts.

"No," he says, firmly. "Nothing is broken. Maybe a little banged up, but..."

He holds her, then, and Ada presses her face against his shoulder and breathes in. His bare skin is soft, and he is musky and sweaty and hard-travelled but she couldn't think of a better place to be right now than being buried against him. He brushes her hair from her face, kisses her forehead.

"I should have been honest with you," she says.

"I wouldn't have listened," he says. "It hurt more than anything, to think you didn't trust me, but it's over now."

"Is it?"

"It should be," he says. He leans his chin against her and breathes in so deeply that she feels his lungs hitch at the end. 

"Chrom," she says, softly. "I did you wrong. I lied to you. We have to talk about what that means."

Chrom pauses and sits back, and he opens his mouth as if to argue, but whatever his argument would be, it dies on his lips.

Then, finally:

"You did. You lied to me. You said you wouldn't do it," he agrees. "And I think, in some way, you were never completely honest about how much you were struggling with Grima."

Ada nods. It stings, but it's nothing she didn't invite or deserve. She starts:

"If you want time—"

"No," Chrom says, quickly, over her. "I've had time, Ada, that's— that's what all this was, without you here. I know why you did it. I came to terms with it. But let me finish."

Ada nods.

Chrom looks hurt, too, just mulling over what he wants to say. He hesitates, hands leaving her shoulders as if his touch might have influenced her, but he doesn't seem to know what else to do with them. 

"You hesitated to come home, you were nervous about even sending word… You're practically shivering, telling me this now, asking me if I'm the one that needs time," Chrom says, barreling through it and then pausing before the inevitable: "Do _you_ need time?"

Ada feels her heart twist.

"No," she says, "no, no. I want to go home. I want to be with my family, and be your wife, and strategize something other than war — like rebuilding. I want to hold my baby, and be a mother –– oh, Chrom, honestly, I would really, truthfully just like to lay in bed with you for a week, reading and talking and doing nothing at all."

The relief Chrom exudes is palpable, a sigh that seems to collapse his shoulders and hang his head. He touches her again, cupping her cheeks in his hands.

"Oh thank gods," he says. "I was terrified you were going to say you needed to wander around soul searching!"

Ada laughs — she can't help it. She clasps her hands on his and giggles under his touch, and their foreheads nearly brush, they lean so close.

"I was terrified of the same!" she replies, relieved. "You scared me!"

" _You_ scared _me_!" Chrom repeats, and he laughs. He kisses her, clumsy but sweet, their noses bumping and their bodies like old lovers.

Ada is sure, then, that everything is going to be just fine.

 

* * *

 

****Ada wakes to an empty bed.

It doesn't trouble her; she's more immediately preoccupied with Morgan peering around the door at her, trying to ascertain whether it's safe to come in. Ada drags her old robe around herself.

"Good morning," she says. 

Morgan looks sheepish. He glances over his shoulder to check that they're going unheard –– difficult, in a tiny house with nine people in it.

"You're still going to come home with us, right?" Morgan asks, and he presses himself right up into her side like a cat. Fifteen isn't too old to cuddle, Ada thinks, putting her arm around him in turn and cradling his head to her shoulder. She also thinks of Ryn back home with a pang — she wants her baby, and she's missed enough of her life.

"Of course, baby," she says. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Father's being weird about you," Morgan says.

"Well, that's him," she says. She tickles him, just because she can, and he tries to bite back a laugh. "We talked, though. It's all going to be fine."

"Good," Morgan says, and then there's a knock at the door. Morgan pulls away from her sharply. She thinks, idly: _he's really a teenager now._

"Come in," Ada says.

The door creeps open and Frederick pokes his head in.

"Hey, betrayer," Ada says. 

Frederick gives her such an exasperated look.

"I'm going to resist being drawn into that kind of debate right now," he says. "But your engagement is noted, milady. Morgan –– out. To breakfast."

Morgan scowls but off he goes. Frederick smooths his hair as he goes by, but it does nothing. Frederick sighs.

"That's okay," she says. "It was probably easier, coming from you. You're a good icebreaker."

Frederick heaves a tremendous sigh.

"Therein lies the problem," he says. "I wanted to let you do it, seeing as you are the one who must practice _honesty_. But I also figured if I kept secrets any longer, I would have an aneurysm and perish."

"Also fair," Ada says. "If it makes you feel better, we've made a new commitment to each other about that."

Frederick nods curtly.

"I'm relieved to hear it," he says. "Now come, get dressed. Breakfast calls."

 

* * *

 

When she's finally up and out, Chrom and Frederick are talking on the porch; though their voices are low and muffled, Ada can see them through the threadbare curtains. Chrom is sitting on the porch with his elbows on his knees, and Frederick stands with his hands folded behind his back.

She opens the door and they both turn around startled. 

"Do I get to join this conversation that is clearly about me?" she asks with a smile.

"What gave you that impression?" Frederick asks.

"You're on the porch instead of inside," Ada replies.

"She's not wrong," Chrom replies. He pats the space next to him on the bench, so Ada sits. "You were saying, Frederick?"

Frederick gives them both an exasperated look, but Ada has long learned to not pay this much mind.

"What do we intend to do about your spare memories, Ada?" he says.

"I'm going to get rid of them," she says. 

"You've got a plan already," Chrom says, only mildly surprised. He looks relieved, too. "You don't want to keep them?"

"Not the memories of the other timeline, no," Ada says. "I'm going to tell Lucina what she wants to know, whatever will give her comfort, and then I'm letting it go."

"If such a thing is possible," Frederick says.

"It's possible," she replies. "Should be easy, even. We have several skilled mages in our close circle. A memory spell should be easy."

"It wouldn't be dangerous?" Chrom asks.

Ada shakes her head. He and Frederick know little of magic.

"I have faith in our friends."

Chrom nods.

"Me too," he says.

Frederick doesn't seem so convinced, but that's why they call him Wary. He finally nods, and he says: "Well. I'm going to go inside and do some work. Come in for breakfast before it gets cold." 

Off he goes. 

Frederick's low voice floats away into the house behind her, and quietens when he closes the door.  Chrom glances back once but then turns his eyes ahead of them. The breeze off the water is cool on her face, and all the leaves on the trees rustle gaily, so that all around her is a chorus of nature. The wind chimes overhead play haphazard music, one broken string letting a bell spin madly.

She thinks that she would go mad living so far from the bustle of the city, now that she is a woman grown with a husband and children and all the duties of being Ylisse's finest grandmaster. But for an afternoon or two –– or as long as it takes Lucina to be well enough to travel –– she can gladly call this home again.

Ada looks at Chrom. He is looking out over the land with the slightest little smile on his face, and so she reaches to lace her fingers with his. He holds her hand gingerly at first, but then his grip tightens. There's a part of her that remembers fiercely clinging to his hand, delighting in his fingers curled around hers in turn, and here it is once more.

All of her is deeply in love with him.

"Hey," he says. "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did," she says, just to be cheesy, and it works. He gives a short little laugh under his breath, smiling.

"I knew you were going to say that," he says.

"But you walked into it anyway."

"I did," he agrees, and he rules his expression a little more. He's handsome when he looks serious. "You know what I mean."

"Ask away," she says.

"Okay," he says. He pauses. "Did you read my letter? Did Tiki give it to you?

"She did," she replies, "but I didn't read it."

Chrom pauses, and he furrows his brows and looks off towards the lake. His grip on her hand tightens.

"Why not?" he asks.

"Because she said you wrote it after I went away," she says. "I figured however you were feeling at the time might be different now."

Chrom nods.

"It probably didn't reflect me at my best," he says. "But you know me pretty well..."

Ada smiles.

"I do," she says. "And I think we're going to start fresh now. What do you think?"

"How?" he asks.

Ada considers it for a moment, and she stops to brush his hair from his eyes, fingertips gentle on his cheek. She says: "I want to burn this place down."

Chrom frowns a touch, hesitant. "Really?"

"Really," she says. "I've been here. I've seen it. I know it's real and I know who I am and who I want to be. It doesn't need to be here anymore; my mother probably would have wanted it that way, but back then I needed a place to fall back on. I don't anymore, because I have you. I have Ylisse. That's a fresh start, right?"

Chrom pauses, as if to savour the moment more than consider what the answer might be, and then he agrees: "We're going to start fresh. We're going home as soon as we can, to see our baby. To sleep in our big bed."

Ada laughs and nods.

"All that and more," she says.

He shifts down the bench and lets go of her hand in favour of laying his head in her lap, and he breathes out such a comfortable sigh that Ada feels herself relax.

Breakfast goes cold, but neither of them care.

 

* * *

 

By time sun sets on their last night in the house, they're all more or less ready to leave. They'll head out in the morning, but their packs are prepared and the house has been dismantled of goods to keep. It'll be a slow trip back, down a horse and laden with extra supplies, but they'll make it work. They're all resourceful people. They settle down again for bed that night with the idea that soon, everything will be back to normal.

Ada's mother's bed is large enough for two, so naturally, Lucina, Owain, Cynthia _and_ Morgan cram in together like they are children again, back-to-back and nose-to-nose.  The mattress is old, but no one passes it up on favour of a night on the ground or hard floor.

"We haven't done this in so long, a sleepover like this," Owain remarks, noisily. He has his arm around Cynthia, who is snickering into his collar.  "Auntie, where's our bedtime story? For old time's sake."

"You're joking," Lucina says, peering over her shoulder at him. 

"I am most serious, cousin, and please refrain from impugning on my honour again by suggesting I would make light of such a sacred tradition!"

"Owain," Lucina sighs, but she smiles.

"I could go for a story," Cynthia says.

"Me too," Morgan agrees. He peers at his mother with a hopeful look. "Please?"

"I don't know –– I've _never_ told stories to a bed full of children," Ada says, slyly, but at least once before, _someone_ had kept a bed full of children rapt with wonder with stories about dragons and war.

"Then there's a first time for everything," Chrom says from behind her. He moves into the doorframe with her, and she feels his hand firm and friendly on her waist. 

"See, Uncle Chrom knows," Owain says. "A story, Auntie!"

She glances back at Chrom, who is smiling, even if it doesn't quite meet his eyes.

"Why not?" Chrom says.

Ada pauses, and she pulls gently away from him to sit on the bed. 

"Okay," she says, "Let me tell you one, then. It's about how two people met." She glances back at Chrom. "You don't know this one, but I think you'll like it."

Lucina looks doubtful, but Morgan sits up straighter.

"Let's hear it!" he says.

"Now... Once there was a—"

"Once upon a time, Auntie," Owain interjects.

Ada laughs under her breath.

"That's right. Once upon a time, there was a prince — handsome and reckless, the kind they tell stories about. When our story takes place, he is young and unfettered, and though responsibilities will someday fall on his neck like an axe, on _this_ particular day he has nothing to do but gallivant around the countryside."

Chrom laughs.

"That's real flattering," he says. "Am I going to be embarrassed?"

"Shush," Ada says, and she sees an old twinkle in his eye when she does. "So this prince is tearing down a countryside road, racing his horse just to feel the wind in his hair — the one that the outer villages use to reach market. The road stretches on for days and days to connect the kingdom with the rest of the world."

Frederick joins Chrom at the door, and Sumia isn't far behind. Ada continues:

"What does the fool do but upset an old cart horse, which spooks and puts the whole wagon into the ditch! The apples go everywhere, all over the place, bouncing down the road and into the fields. Now, he realizes what he's done and he turns his horse around immediately, and he gets down off his horse to pull this young woman out of the ditch."

Chrom laughs, suddenly.

"He had a knight and little sister with him, didn't he?"

"Don't spoil them," Ada scolds, gamely. "But yes. Our prince gets down on one knee to rouse the merchant girl. And the fool prince opens with what he thinks is terribly witty: there are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know!"

All the children laugh, as does Sumia. Even Frederick can't resist a slight smile. Chrom's laugh is embarrassed.

"Now, she doesn't think this is so funny — her cart has been thrown from the road, her harvest goods are scattered everywhere, and she lays into him, calling him irresponsible and reckless and all those things."

"Which shamed him dutifully, I'm sure," Chrom says. "After all, he didn't mean to run her off the road — but she sure is beautiful, even when she's angry, so maybe it was a good twist in fate, that it let him meet her."

Ada laughs.

"And what did he do to smooth things over?"

Chrom pauses and then laughs: "He probably offered to accompany her into the city, help her pick up all the apples, but he probably didn't say it very well."

"No, he didn't," Ada agrees. "And she was so upset that she started throwing apples at him, alarming his old knight greatly — she caught him twice, once in the shoulder, and the other right—"

She leans over greatly to reach where Chrom is now sitting, and she prods him right in the temple.

"Here. And the knight, he grabs her by the arm and demands..."

She looks to Frederick, who is leaning in the doorway with his arms folded. He hesitates but then relents, softening with all eyes on him.

"He demands she cease at once — does she not recognize the Prince of Ylisse?"

Ada nods with a smile.

"Almost verbatim," she says, a bit proud. "And she was instantly silenced, but it was too late to be embarrassed. She'd already made a fool of herself in front of royalty! So what else could she do but secure how she'd been wronged?"

Chrom chuckles.

"We fixed the cart, I imagine," he says. "And escorted you to the city."

"The prince and the knight and the sister, yes," Ada says pointedly. "But she went one step further — she demanded they purchase the whole cart of apples, every one, as they had damaged many of them in the accident."

"A reasonable request, actually," Frederick offers.

"She sure thought so," Ada agrees. "They agreed, and they rode into Ylisse together. The prince rode in the front of the cart, much to her chagrin, but they talked."

She glances to Chrom, who is watching her with wide eyes and an open mouth. 

"They talked for hours, all the way to the castle, to the kitchen stock doors. He never once tried to hand her off to the staff, and then, when the rest of the cart had been emptied, he personally brought her to the offices to arrange payment."

"That's not very romantic," Cynthia remarks. 

"They hadn't fallen in love yet," Ada says, with a smile. "But they went to the offices and she drew up an invoice with the clerks, and they said their goodbyes."

"He invited her to stay," Chrom adds. "He must have."

Ada laughs and nods.

"He invited her for _dinner_ , as an apology. And when she declined, he said: _is it because you're not dressed for a dinner? I'm sure we can find you a dress to wear instead of those rags._ "

The whole room bursts into laughter again. Chrom laughs too, despite the flush in his cheeks.

"He would!" Sumia laughs. "Oh, Captain."

"I'm not coming across very well, here," he says.

"What did she say to that?" Morgan asks.

"She said: that is the most pigheaded thing I've heard."

"Not exactly winning herself points with the knight," Frederick remarks.

"Exactly!" Ada says. "He didn't like her much… but the prince, he just let her go."

"And she left? Just like that?" 

"Just like that," Ada agrees. "But the knight and the prince, they look at this invoice and the knight realizes she hasn't just charged them for the cart full of apples — she's appended a tax, so to speak, for his recklessness... for the full sum of the entire season's harvest."

"That's very bold," Frederick says. "I imagine that didn't go over well."

"The knight was outraged! But the prince had other plans –– he was determined to see it the error through, and he spent weeks tracking her down, eventually finding her along an old trade route. When he finally discovered where she lived, he knocked on her door. The old woman there refused to answer, saying they did not open the door for strangers, and he said..."

She looks to Chrom.

"I'm here for her," Chrom suggests.

Ada nods and holds up one finger. "He says: I'd like to see Robin again."

Robin. They'd all known the characters, but this sets it in stone. There's a momentary hush, and Ada continues: "The woman won't allow it. She says he ran her off the road, she doesn't care if he's the ruler of the whole _world_ , but he insists. If he sees her again, he'll pay the invoice in full, he promises. He just wants to see her."

"So the woman lets him," Chrom says, with a smile. 

"Yes. Robin comes out into the yard, and she immediately says: you came out here personally for this? And the prince, he _laughs_. You couldn't expect him to buy the whole season's harvest for that price, could you? She's flustered but she holds her ground: how will you learn if there isn't a consequence?"

"Love at first scolding," Owain remarks, and Cynthia whaps him upside the head.

Ada snorts.

"And he says: if I'm going to pay for all those apples I won't even eat myself, I'm going to have dinner with you at least once. He laughs so easily, and he's so playful about the whole affair, and he is handsome as can be, but it's his conviction that draws her to him, right there. He is so assured of himself and so possessed by a willingness to make things right that she likes him for that despite everything else."

Chrom is pink in the cheeks. Ada laughs and looks at her lap for a moment, willing herself to not grow too attached to the memory.

"And she agrees to dinner. She accompanies him back to Ylisse, even with her mother's disapproval, and she wears the best clothes she owns, which are still a world away from the prince's finery."

Chrom's gaze is warm on the side of her face.

"They have the most wonderful evening," she says. "And within the year, they are engaged."

"But is there a happy ending?" Lucina asks, quietly. All hush to look at her, and Ada is startled to see her eyes welled up, thick with tears that roll freely down her face. 

"Oh, sweetheart," Ada says, and she leans in to reach her daughter, who buries her face in her hands. With one hand on Lucina's knee, she says: "We're here right now. Together. Isn't that a happy ending?"

Lucina lets out a choke of a response and nods. Owain puts an arm around her, and Cynthia leans against her supportively. Morgan watches apprehensively, out of reach. 

"Luci," Chrom says, hushed, moving to sit with them, "our happy ending starts today."

Lucina moves from her cousin's arm and crawls down the bed, right into Ada's arms. Ada holds her daughter tightly, a hand gliding over the back of her hair. Unwittingly, tears spring in her own eyes.

Lucina just cries.

 


	14. Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened before, and how it ends.

.

 

 

**The Mila Tree, some months prior.**

 

 

 

She knows where she is before she even opens her eyes.

It's funny. The first time she’d been here – _where?_ – she’d been unmoved by the place’s great power. Others – _who?_ — had been tempted in by sweetness and quietude and restfulness, she had just felt they were in any other place. She’d felt so distanced by her apathy to it all, the disconnect between her and them and this place.

Now, though, the sweetness is overwhelming. She finds herself in the grass, its lushness so soft and thick beneath her body that she feels weightless, the air warm and the sun beating down on her eyelids. It takes a few moments to even open her eyes, and then the sight of the place is almost sensory overload, so she closes them again.

For a few moments she lays there, thoughtless and empty, and then she feels gravity again. The grass under her is damp against her skin. When she dares open her eyes again for just a few seconds, the flowers bending in the breeze make her feel dizzy – such a _human_ thing to feel!

She rolls over with some difficulty, and the feeling of the ground under her palms is enough to kickstart something in her brain.

Where is she?

 _Who_ is she?

“ _Oh_ ,” she says, out loud, and she’s surprised by how feeble her own voice is.

She realizes her body aches somewhat, her muscles straining with every movement, as if waking from a long sleep. And on top of that, she is naked, hair loosed and skin flush with the grass and soft soil, and suddenly she feels less like a dream and more like a living being –– one with a heartbeat and deep lungs and two eyes.

She struggles to open her eyes and keep them open, the light almost too much to bear. The world is a sea of green land and blue skies, stretching on endlessly. She struggles to make out the stone of a courtyard only a few feet away, and her neck strains when she tries to look up at the great stone shrine towering over her. 

“Poor woman,” someone says.

She looks above her. There’s a woman bending over her, tiny but willowy in stature. Her long olivine hair drapes down like trailing tree branches. Her eyes are dark and cow-like, thick-lashed and serene.

“Help,” she says to the woman, breathlessly.

“Ada,” the woman says, fondly.

Ada. Yes, that’s her name – _Ada._

“Naga has been good to us, it seems,” the woman says, crouching down. Ada just rolls back over, again to some effort, and her hand finds the woman's boot with some difficulty. Red lambskin, worn but supple.

“Naga?” Ada repeats, but the memory is flowing back to her: the woman is Tiki, and she is Naga’s Voice. Naga is the Divine Dragon, and the Divine Dragon has vanquished the Fell Dragon, Grima—

 _Grima._ She is Grima.

She _was_ Grima.

The tears are flowing before she can stop them, rolling down the sides of her face, and suddenly Ada feels the full power of this sacred place, the power she could never feel when she was a burgeoning host to the Fell Dragon. She shakes in the grass, Tiki stroking her hair and saying sweet words, the birds singing and the flowers waving gaily in the breeze.

“Please,” she sobs, shivering, and Tiki unclasps her pink cloak and lays it across Ada’s body. Ada almost begs: "Tell me what's happened."

“Shh,” Tiki shushes her. “Naga has given you back to us.”

 

* * *

 

Ada isn’t sure how long she sleeps, but when she comes to again, she’s in what she assumes is Tiki’s home.

It’s a timeless little place, furnished largely by nature and bare of most creature comforts. The bed is peat moss and the floor is ancient stone. Ada finds a simple pleasure in looking around, huddled in that moss bed with Tiki’s cloak still wrapped around her. And when looking isn't enough anymore, she crawls from the bed to her shaky feet, to better get a handle on her surroundings. The need to know strikes her like a compulsion, a certain her-ness that she can't resist.

 _That's just what I do,_ she thinks.

Her knees creak like she's never bent them before, but it's a good feeling, if not a bit uncomfortable.

There isn’t much to explore. There is a trunk, locked with a relatively modern bolt, and the old stone countertops are bare save a few personal items. There’s an ivory hairbrush missing most of its bristles, a tarnished mirror and a basket of little stones, as well as a strange yellow-white orb with gold fittings. She is momentarily transfixed by this orb, picking it up and rolling it around in her palm, and she hangs onto it while she continues to poke around. The sink, outfitted with a rusted hand-pump, doesn't seem to have been used for a long time. Under the counter is a single shelf cut out of stone, and Ada feels an odd prick of delight when she notices a few books that look long untouched. When she runs a finger along their spines, the leather is hard and the paper brittle like butterfly wings. When she pulls one out, dust pours from the pages like water.

Their oldness tickles her.

“I confess I do not keep much of a home,” Tiki remarks, nearly startling Ada out of her skin.

“Oh gods,” Ada says, heaving a great breath in. She drops the orb from her stiff fingers and it rolls across the stone with a clatter. Ada gathers Tiki’s cloak around her tighter to kneel and pick it up; her muscles feel like wood, and the motion is difficult. “I’m so sorry!”

“It is alright,” Tiki says, softly amused. She offers a hand to help Ada up, but Ada struggles up on her own.

“What is this?” Ada asks, holding up the orb and passing it between her palms.

Tiki just smiles again for a moment, and when Ada sighs and sinks to sit on the edge of the bed again, Tiki finally says: “Argent. You don’t remember?”

Ada peers at the orb. It does come back, in trickles: Azure, and Gules, and Vert, and Sable, and…

“Argent? But you had Azure before,” she remarks. Then, questioning herself: "Didn't you?"

“So you do remember,” Tiki replies. “Yes, I held Azure. But many years ago I held Argent, then called the Lightsphere… Marth used it for great purpose, and it allowed me to live amongst humans.”

“And Chrom gave it back to you,” Ada breathes. Her husband's name is as heavy on her lips as Argent is in her hand. The thought of him is so strong she almost expects him to be standing right behind her, having been waiting for her to notice him. That's just part of herself resurfacing, though -- the part of her that is tied to him.

Chrom.

She meets Tiki’s eyes again, and Tiki watches her with an odd sort of serenity. Ada remembers, belatedly, that Tiki’s gaze has always been so unsettling, deep and timeless. It's a quality she hasn't seen in the other manaketes, but then again, the others are perhaps too young or frivolous to have seen the depth of Tiki's life. 

Tiki lets the silence linger between them for a moment, and then she asks: “Do you remember what brought you here, Ada?”

Ada nods. 

“I sacrificed myself to defeat Grima.” 

She doesn’t need to ask if it was successful; she feels it in her heart, in the lightness of her soul, on the pristine skin of the back of her hand. She practically breathes success in her mere existence, but to be here guarantees nothing -- there's no context to your existence when you share a room with a timeless being, least of all in a sacred place.

She needs the normal. The mortal.

She's almost holding her breath when she asks: “How long has it been, Tiki?”

“A heartbeat for me,” Tiki says. “Some months for you, perhaps. A year at most.”

Ada exhales in relief.

“And Chrom?" His name again, warmer, and then, warmer still: "My children?”

“In Ylisse,” Tiki says. "They are well, last I heard. He sends word every few months, but I must confess I cannot not read."

Ada finds herself lost for words, and instead of fumbling with thanks and praise for any force that has pulled them all to one time on one earth, she just focuses on that last statement and lets her mind drift.

"You can't read?" she asks, surprised. Why she cares about that right now, she doesn't know, but she does. It makes her feel earth-bound and simple and beyond the minds of dragon-gods. "I didn't know that."

Unoffended, Tiki smiles and shakes her head. Her ears wiggle slightly when she does, which catches Ada's attention. Chrom had pointed that wiggle out to her once, leaning in close to whisper it, in case Tiki's keen ears caught it. (They had anyway.)

"Language changes over time, so I am rusted," Tiki says. "It is easier to speak, anyhow."

She turns away, couching to open the trunk. Unlike the sparseness of the shrine, the trunk is full, absolutely laden with cloth and paper and stone and trinkets and whatnot. Ada can barely do a mental inventory before Tiki closes it again, a single letter new in-hand. 

Ada feels her heart catch in her chest just seeing it, and then again when Tiki presses it into her hands. The envelope is till sealed with a knob of wax stamped with the Brand. Ada turns it in her hands. 

It says _Ada_ on the front, in Chrom's easy longhand, the line on the first 'A' speared right though the 'd' and overtop the second 'a'. He always writes her name like that, always did. 

"It's for me," she says, surprised. _They don’t even know I'm here_ , she thinks. She hardly knows she’s here, either! "And he left this with you because..."

"Where else in the world, but here or your field?" Tiki muses, and she sits down on the bed. 

"My field?" Ada asks. "Oh, oh. The field where..."

"I imagine he has another under a rock there, too," Tiki says, and this time Ada isn't sure if she's teasing or not.

“I have to get back to them,” she says.

She doesn't want to read it.

"You should rest, first,” Tiki says. "You've just awoken again... you're hardly in shape for a journey like that."

“I can’t just wait,” Ada says. “They don’t know I’m here. They have to… they have to know.”

"And they will," Tiki says. "I will commune with Naga tonight for her judgment, and tomorrow, I will descend the Tree and send a letter for you."

Ada almost laughs, a dry, hoarse sound.

"A letter?" she says. That'll take months.

Tiki blinks at her, slow and serene.

"It is some weeks to Ylisse," she says, gently. "You are weak-kneed, like a newborn."

In gesture, she reaches to Ada's forearm and gives her a gentle, playful shove. Ada finds herself swaying in response, much too hard, one arm wheeling, and if Tiki did not keep hold on her forearm with a surprising firmness, Ada surely would have fallen to her knees. Instead, Tiki pulls her right again, and her smile is positively impish.

"You would rush out on these?" Tiki asks, and she gently guides Ada back to the bed, where Ada sinks down with a beleaguered laugh.

"No, I suppose not," Ada says.

And then Ada laughs.

"Oh gods," she says. "This reminds me... when I was a little girl, my mother..."

She's watching Tiki's face.

"Ada?" Tiki says, softly.

Ada breathes in deeply.

"Oh, gods, I remember," she says. "I... I remember my life before Chrom."

She bursts into tears.

  
And that, of all things, sets her course.

 

 

* * *

 

**Ylisse, Today**

 

 

As things should be in this world, Ada is up first. She blinks off sleep like nothing, as easily as she casts the bedcovers aside.

She peels herself from her husband's arms only after she presses a kiss to his sleeping face, and he mumbles something unintelligible but sweet as she climbs from bed. The floor is cool on her bare feet; the first winds of fall have spilled in through the open balcony door. It's a nice change from the oppressive heat that has plagued the palace for weeks.

On this particular day, Ada's sure most of the castle is already bustling, but in their private quarters, it's still quiet. Their staff won't be allowed in for another hour or so, and so Ada draws her own bath and washes her hair, and when she dresses after, she opts for a simple pair of high-waisted trousers and camisole. She'd like to spend her last morning low-key, unobtrusive. When she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she tucks her wet bangs behind her ears and smiles. 

Today will be good.

Ada heads out of their quarters and down the hall. Her first stop will be the nursery, which isn't terribly far, but it takes her a little longer because she has to politely dodge conversation –– the castle is very much as bustling as she thought it would be. Every twenty feet is another hello, another congratulations, another bid for conversation; almost all of court is gathered, but there will be time for them later. For now, she's off to see her baby.

"Lady Ada!" 

She keeps walking, but she glances over her shoulder to acknowledge her caller. Frederick catches up with several long strides, already immaculately dressed from head to toe. He glances over her outfit, her wet hair, and her little house slippers, and he heaves a deep sigh. She just smiles.

"Is Lord Chrom awake yet?" he asks.

"He's sleeping," Ada says. "Let him, for a while longer. It's going to be a long day."

"And a long night," Frederick adds. "The banquet will likely last into the morning."

"I know," she says, wryly. "You've got it planned out until _two_."

"Just in case," he reminds her. " _You_ should plan to enjoy it."

"Of course," she says. She reaches and claps him on the shoulder, or at least as high on his arm as she can reach without putting in effort. "But right now, I'm going to see my baby."

"Ah," Frederick says. And then he's distracted, spying the staff members mounting Chrom and Ada's wedding portrait back in its place in the hall –– "Gentlemen! Keep your fingers off the canvas, you'll sully it with the oil––"

Off she goes, slipping from his sight and up the stairs. She lets herself in, tiptoeing right past the nurse, who has nodded off in the rocking chair. Ryn is awake, sitting up and playing quietly in her crib, and when she spies her mother creeping in, she pulls herself up against the rails with a squeal.

Ada lifts her littlest one from her bed, hands under Ryn's fat arms. She's still not used to it, even after weeks at home. In her mind's eye, Ryn is still so small that her head should be cradled when lifted, that her doughy little body will just curve to her arms. Not so, now. Now, Ryn can sit upright in her arms, and say four words at a time. The start of sentence structure, and pronouns, and _thinking_ words and _feeling_ words.

It fills her with wonder every time. Not just to remember it, but to _hear_ it.

"Good morning," Ada coos, kissing her cheeks. "Good morning, sunshine!"

Ryn squeals with laughter, and Ada shifts her so that the toddler is balanced in the crook of her arm, legs around her ribs. 

"Guess what today is?" she asks, brushing her wispy little bangs out of her face. "Guess what, Ryn?"

"What?" Ryn repeats. She has a wooden toy duck in hand and she absently brings it to her mouth to gnaw on its head. Ada laughs and gently bops her little girl on the nose.

"Today Mama's going to be Queen Consort."

 

* * *

 

When she gets down to the dining hall, Morgan and Lucina are already there, squabbling over the red berries and cream. Morgan has dribbled berry juice on the white tablecloths in his haste to serve himself a considerable serving, and the red blossoms through the fabric. Lucina dabs at it frantically, as if the servants would ever dream of chastising them.

"You don't have to take it _all_ ," Lucina scolds him. "And look at what a mess you've made!"

"It's just a tablecloth," Morgan says.

"Well, tell that to Father and Mother when they find you've eaten all the best part of breakfast!"

"You can have my share," Ada pipes up, shifting Ryn to one hip and delighting in how her elder two children look up with alarm. "But be more careful, Morgan. You don't want to make work for people."

"Mother!" Lucina says. "I thought you would be sleeping in with Father."

"He can sleep," she replies. "He's going to have a long night."

"Aren't you?"

"No," Ada says, as she sets Ryn into her chair. "I'm going to be up in my room by ten, just as an excuse to get out of that dress. Your father has more patience for carousing, anyway."

"I can't believe you're going to wear a dress!" Morgan says. He looks curious about this idea, and then oddly apprehensive. He's never seen her in a dress, Ada knows. In fact, he's never seen her with much in the way of make-up, or with her hair done any way but practically. He leans across the table with his chin in his hands. "Are you embarrassed?"

Ada laughs.

"A little," she admits.

"I think it'll look nice," Lucina says, looking up from her berries. "Does father like it?"

"He won't shut up about it," Ada says, sliding into her own seat. She reaches for the serving dish and Morgan passes it eagerly, and so she spoons a few dollops onto a plate. "He came to every fitting."

"He's weird," Morgan says.

"He's just excited," Lucina says.

"He's weird," Ada agrees.

Morgan laughs. Lucina sits back in her chair, holding a pastry in one hand and her tea in the other, and she finally relents and smiles at it, too.

"That's where Morgan and Lucina get it from," Owain booms from the doorway. 

All three of them turn to look at him. He's dressed in full Ylissean royal regalia, a well-tailored and slick-smart military jacket in bright yellow, with a black and gold breast and a high, trimmed collar. It cuts short at his waist and the cuffs are unbuttoned to reveal the red cuff of his shirts. Ada imagines he had it made based on some ludicrous _vision_ he had, rather than any reality of what looks good, but who is she to judge? 

"I'm not weird," Lucina protests.

"I'm sorry, cousin," Owain says. He does not seat himself so much as fling himself there, a short dash and a dramatic lean. He lowers his voice, conspiratorily: "You are, indeed, weird."

Lucina rolls her eyes, but good-natured as she is, she relents. 

"I think it's a good thing," Morgan says, delighted.

"Me too," Ada says. "I wouldn't have my unusual family any other way!"

"Good," Owain booms. He reaches over her to get a croissant, which he crams half of in his mouth immediately. "After today, you're officially stuck with us _forever_ –– a _royal!_ "

And what a wonderful fate that is.

 

* * *

 

 

Dressing takes much too long.

Ada is swarmed. She's been standing on this box for an hour now, surrounded by maids and seamstresses; they're armed with little needles and threads, tacking down little embroidered pieces that couldn't be finished until it was fit to her body. Another, a talented little mage, is enchanting the hem of her skirts, so that it glows in blue and gold, the household colours.

She's still standing precariously on this box when Chrom steps in. He's been dressed for an hour, which is long enough for him to have already discarded his coat until he has to put it back on for the ceremony. It drapes over his arm, no doubt acquiring at least one wrinkle that will put Frederick into a fit.

"Wow," he says, on approach. His eyes coast up her figure, and he stops close enough to dent the broad silhouette of her skirts. She turns a quarter-twirl, the most she can do without inconveniencing the maids.

"You _promised_ it'd be a small event," Ada says. She can't help but reach out and pinch his cheek, as close as affectionate she'll get with all these maids bustling around her. "This is a _big event_ dress."

"It can't be a small event, because you've been lazing around the castle for weeks," he says. "You've just made the people more excited with every day you've spent in bed with books and the baby and the children. "

"Is that a complaint?" she asks. "I seem to recall you chasing me back into it more than a few times, when I've strayed too close to _actual_ work."

He grins, and he drops his eyes momentarily.

"I can't keep you in here forever, huh?"

"Unfortunately not," she says. She is, after all, excited to get back in the saddle, if only in the figurative sense. Rebuilding is a task she is growing warm to, and side by side, they'll be able to make a much bigger difference.

"They do miss you in the war room," he says.

"I know," she says. He laughs under his breath. "Soon!"

"Just as soon as you have a crown on your head," he says.

A moment of silence settles between them, odd and sudden, but Ada knows why. She's been crowned before, and the thought bubbles back at the back of her head. She watches Chrom's expression shift. 

"Everything okay?" he asks.

"Yes," she says. She reaches to thumb his cheek, and she looks down at him with a smile. "I just had one of those thoughts, like… we've been here before, but all the words are different, and the feeling is different, and…"

She trails. He looks up at her and waits.

"Any place we could be, any world, any kingdom, in dreams or the afterlife," she says. "We've been through some terrible things to get here, Chrom."

Chrom nods, unperturbed. She feels that little surge of confidence.

"It feels like we're going to be _happy_ now, _truly_ happy," she says. "It feels like… after everything we've weathered to get to this point, we're unshakeable. Everything from here is going to be good."

"I'm glad," he says. "But I've known that since I met you."

"Braggart," she teases.

She winds her fingers with his.

 

* * *

 

Ada has been on the ceremonial balcony only twice before. 

As a newlywed, oblivious to her origins, she'd looked down over the people and wondered if even one could identify her, this stranger whisked up by the Exalt and beloved enough to become his wife.

As a Grandmaster tactician, and a woman of Plegian heritage, she'd looks down over the people and declared the war in Valm a success, having vanquished Walhart, one of the greatest threats to ever rise in the west. 

As a Queen Consort and mother in a time of unprecedented peace, it will be wholly different… and, as she must remind herself, a vanquisher of Grima.

It is, in some ways, the part she has dreaded, in some small place at the pit of her belly. To wear a crown is one thing; to appear before the people is another, and she has always felt more at home commanding an army than the populace.

She looks to the curtain ahead of them; behind them, the crowds are loud already, alive with chatter, and there are periodic cheers, rising like waves. Lucina, Morgan and Owain have been out there for some time now, entertaining the people with waves and blown kisses.

Ylisse hasn't had a traditional crowned royal family in well over a decade. It feels humbling to complete it.

(Not that it's really traditional at all, Ada thinks, if one considers the origins of some of her children, but they can be happy nonetheless.)

She looks to Chrom to find he is already looking at her, and he smiles at her with such boyish glee that her heart skips a beat — she feels her love for him with the intensity of two, three, maybe a hundred lifetimes, for all the tragedy they've been through together, and for this happy ending they've found.

"Nervous? What are you thinking?" he asks, invitingly. _Be playful. Be witty. Be real with me._

She lifts her chin and smiles.

"Do you really want to know?" she asks. An invitation to challenge her: _be open. Be adventuresome. Be in this moment with me._ "Right before we go on stage, and you have to put on a dignified face?"

"I always want to know," he says.

Ada's smile widens, and she keeps her gaze fixed on his. She reaches to him with fingers outstretched, and he takes them. He steps closer, into the plushness of her gown, and he takes her hand to his mouth and he kisses her knuckles.

"Okay," she says. "I'm pregnant with twins."

Chrom's smile flickers, startled, and then broadens.

"How do you know?" he asks. The delight creeps in already regardless.

Ada shrugs, laughs –– she can't help it. He kisses the bare skin of the back of her hand.

"Intuition," she says.

Chrom laughs, too, breathes a deep sigh of relief.

"That was fast," he teases.

"What do you expect? It's us," Ada says.

And then the horns rise up in a glorious fanfare, and he sweeps her out onto the balcony, presenting her to the world.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, 369 days later, we're done. Here we are!
> 
> Thank you so much for coming on this long ride with me, and for all the kind words and reviews along the way. This story has been very dear to me and a good reminder to myself of what I'm capable of -– finishing work is one of the hardest things to do in writing, I think. It's been wonderful, and I'm so happy that I've managed to connect with so many of you.
> 
> As always, I love talking about process and ideas and story beats, so by all means, feel free to pick my brain.
> 
> Happy holidays and a happy new year to all!
> 
> Jenn


End file.
